Measuring walking accessibility to public transport for the elderly: the case of Naples

Demographic ageing represents an essential challenge for local authorities and public transport providers. Decision-makers should not ignore the speci c needs of this weak segment of the population and should implement appropriate policies. This paper develops a GIS-based method to analyse public transport accessibility of elderly people to support policies and planning strategies. To test the proposed method, we propose an application to the city of Naples in Italy. We selected this study case because it represents an example of high population density, complex urban structure and low level of quality of life, especially for the elderly. The application to the city of Naples showed that the urban accessibility changes dramatically for different age segments. Results also reveal patterns of public transport coverage that are signi cantly low particularly in suburban settings. The structure of this paper is organised into four sections: in the rst section, we introduce the main topic of mobility of elderly; in the second section, we describe and discuss the GIS-based method proposed; in the third section, we report on the application to the city of Naples; in the last section, we analyse the results and discuss future research developments.The growing number of people living far beyond the age of 65 who lead an active lifestyle represents an important challenge for the public administration and transport companies. Thus, the local transport companies can no longer ignore the specific needs of this broad segment of the population and should take the appropriate initiatives as soon as possible. Our aim is to develop a GIS-based procedure to evaluate the level of accessibility to the local transport system that takes into account the elderly population, the frequency of services and the urban environment. The proposed GIS-based procedure is applied to the bus transport network of the urban area of Naples. We selected this case study because it represents one of the best examples of a southern European city with high population density and complex urban structure. The structure of this paper is organised into four different parts, as follows: in the first part, we reviewed the scientific studies that analyse the quality of life of the elderly through the integration of transport and land use characteristics; in the second part, a GIS-based procedure is proposed for the analysis of local transport network and socio-economic characteristics in the transport service areas; in the third part, we applied the GIS-based procedure to the city of Naples; in the last section, we analysed the results and gaps of each step of our research and described its further developments