Date of Graduation

1998

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

America, as a society, is aging. Currently, 13% of the population is 65 years of age or older. This percentage is expected to rise to 21% by 2030. Since older travelers frequently suffer from one or more age-related physical and/or information handling decrements, they often have problems using intermodal passenger transfer facilities. The overall goal of this study was to develop a framework which can provide an approach to identify older traveler issues associated with intermodal passenger transfer facilities and serve to guide planning and engineering improvements to intermodal passenger transfer facilities to increase the safety and mobility of older travelers. This objective was achieved by developing an older traveler plan (OTP) for intermodal passenger transfer facilities as a tool for transportation practitioners in real application on the basis of analyses of the results of an older traveler survey, information on a unique systems approach to older transportation in Waterloo, Iowa, and information from existing literature on older travel. Overall results of this study tended to confirm the hypothesis that a systems approach to planning, designing and operating an intermodal passenger transfer facility is appropriate to address the problems of older travelers. The older traveler plan (OTP) which includes a step-by-step approach, is a simple, effective tool which is expected to help support transportation planners and traffic engineers in planning, designing, implementing, operating, and maintaining intermodal passenger transfer facilities to increase the mobility and safety of older travelers. This was confirmed by a limited survey of transportation practitioner.

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