Mackett, Roger; (2022) Policy interventions to make travel more inclusive for people with mental health conditions. Presented at: TRANSED: Mobility, Accessibility, and Demand Response Transportation Conference, Virtual conference.

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Abstract

A significant proportion of the adults living in the United States and Britain have been diagnosed with a mental health condition (for example, anxiety and depression). The purpose of this presentation is to discuss the difficulties faced by these people when they travel, and ways in which policy interventions could be used to encourage them to travel more. The main evidence in the presentation comes from an on-line survey people with mental health conditions carried out by distributing the link to the questionnaire through a number of organizations involved with mental health or travel in Britain. Because the survey was carried out on-line it was not possible to control the demographic structure of the responses. In order to address this issue, the results were weighted to match the age and gender profile of the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey. This meant that 363 responses were considered in the results being presented here. Linear regression analysis has been used with the various issues affect travel as the dependent variable and gender, age and type of area as the independent variables. The type of area varied from large cities to rural areas. After considering the various mental illness that the respondents have and the effects that these have, including the differences between men and women, the presentation examines the anxiety issues that the respondents have when travelling. These are considered under five headings: interacting with fellow travellers, interacting with staff and purchasing tickets, wayfinding, needing support, and needing to take urgent action. Policy interventions to improve access to infrastructure and services to help address the anxieties are discussed under these headings. The number of respondents who say that they would travel more if some of the interventions were introduced is then considered, with the variations by gender, age and type of area, examined. It is found, for example, that policies and actions that would increase confidence when travelling, such as having clearer information on buses and trains and having more staff around, would increase travel by women more than men, whereas men would prefer improvements to the physical environment such as less clutter on the street and more public toilets. People living in urban areas would like more signposts on the street whereas those living in rural areas would like to see better trained bus and rail staff. The presentation concludes that there are ways in which some of the anxieties that people have when travelling can be addressed and that introducing these types of intervention would increase travel by people with mental health conditions.

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