Mackett, RL; Titheridge, H; Achuthan, K; (2012) Consulting older and disabled people about their local accessibility needs. Presented at: International Conference on Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled Persons (TRANSED 2012), Delhi, India.

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology that has been used to consult elderly and disabled people about their local accessibility needs, the barriers that need to be overcome and the translation of the findings into the planning process. The work builds on the AUNT-SUE programme of work. AUNT-SUE (Accessibility Accessibility and User Needs in Transport for Sustainable Urban Environments) was carried out jointly at University College London (UCL), London Metropolitan University and the University of Loughborough. At UCL the software tool AMELIA (A Methodology for Enhancing Life by Increasing Accessibility) was developed. This is a policy-oriented user-friendly interface to a GIS (Geographical Information System), for use by local transport planners to test whether their policies increase social inclusion. A key part of the project was to consult groups in the community about whether AMELIA was a good representation of how they consider accessibility issues, and to see whether it could serve as a consultation tool. Consultations have been held with several groups one of which was a group of elderly and disabled people in St Albans in Hertfordshire in Great Britain. The consultation exercises included both general discussions about accessibility and exercises based on AMELIA. For practical and ethical reasons it was not possible to consult with the participants outdoors. Three imaginary journeys were taken by the group using photographs taken by the researchers linked to a projected image of a map of the centre of St Albans to stimulate discussion about the obstacles along the routes and the provision of useful facilities and level access to buildings. The information about the barriers to movement collected from these exercises was input into AMELIA to see how much access would be increased if the barriers were removed. The results were fed back to the group to see their reaction to the findings. The work was reported to the St Albans City Forum, which is a consultative body that provides an opportunity for the St Albans City Council to communicate with representatives of community groups, stakeholders, businesses and members of the public. The findings were subsequently incorporated into the St Albans Public Delivery Strategy. It is shown how AMELIA can be used to translate the often rather subtle requirements of those who find barriers to movement that do not apply to most members of society, into robust findings in the language and methodology used by policy makers, both political and professional.

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