Evaluating the age-friendliness of transport system in Sri Lankan cities

Abstract

Nowadays as one of the key areas of urban planning and design, health concerns of the community, with high vulnerability on older population have re-appear. Over the time, the elderly population around the world are predicted to increase and Sri Lanka follows the same trend. In this context, the concept of ‘Age-friendly Cities’ introduced by WHO comes to play. WHO has identified, ‘Transport and Mobility’ as one of the eight priority domains for policy action in order to build age-friendly cities. Since without transportation, other facilities and services are inaccessible, transportation plays a major role in a city design. How to effectively understand the age-friendliness of a city’s transport system and diagnose the underlying problems of urban development have therefore become critical in managing this demographic change. Previous studies have not yet provided a proper methodology for quantification of age-friendliness of transport system in Sri Lankan cities. This study aims to evaluate the age-friendliness of transport system in Sri Lankan cities by incorporating quantitative indicator-based examination. Three case study areas; Negombo, Kurunegala and Kandy, were employed and the results show that the age-friendliness of transport system in each city is 59.29%, 68.25% and 66.98% respectively.