Improving accessibility to urban services for over 65: a GIS-supported method

By referring to the eight domains of age-friendly cities (WHO, 2007), urban accessibility can be considered as one of the elements cutting across most of them. The relationship between the organization of the urban system (supply) and the mobility of the population over 65 (as for every city user) has prompted scientific debate on how to improve the accessibility of the over 65 to the services of their interest through the pedestrian network and the public transport network. This study is a first research segment of the broader MOBILAGE project, which aims at defining a decision support tool for public administrations to improve elders’ accessibility to urban services, thus contributing to enhance their quality of life. Most studies of the literature are interested only in measuring the catchment area of health services, in order to investigate the degree of accessibility to this service, by identifying both the most disadvantaged portions of the urban area and those characterized by a balance between supply and demand. The objective of this first step of research is wider and is oriented to define the catchment area of all services for over 65 on the basis of the existing street network, the orography of the territory and the pedestrian speeds of the three age groups of the old population (65-69; 70-74; >75).