Enhancing outdoor mobility for active ageing in Hong Kong : prospects and challenges

Abstract

Population ageing is a global phenomenon which has a far-reaching impact on social and economics perspectives. It is also one of the greatest challenges towards future policy planning and development. Active ageing is established as a strategy in response to the ageing population. According to the World Health Organization, active ageing is recognized as the process of optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance the quality of life as people age. Many international cities have incorporated the principle of active ageing in their policies formation and implementation. This is with the vision to achieve a goal of maintaining autonomy and independency when people grow old.

Moreover, ageing-in-place has been considered as a crucial factor to achieve active ageing. According to recent studies, “Ageing-in-place” is defined as remaining active and mobile in the community and thus enabling the elderly to maintain independence, autonomy, and connection to social support. From this perspective, the study attempts to examine the prospects and challenges of enhancing mobility among the older adults by means of a survey conducted to obtain the views and perceptions of the elderly on their neighborhood environment and public transport services. The neighborhood environment features with more social connections can mobilize the older people. Meanwhile, an age-friendly public transport system can facilitate the elderly to remain attached to their society and ageing-in-place. The set of data are further analyzed to identify the limitations the elderly are experienced and explore possible measures to improve the current situation in regarding to the built neighborhood environment as well as transport services, and thus to encourage them to participate in the community actively through enhancing their mobility. The study results provide some insights for future transport policies making as well.