GOAL · GOAL: Growing Older, stAying mobiLe: The transport needs of an ageing society""

The aim of GOAL is to provide an action plan for innovative solutions to fulfil the transport needs of an ageing society. This action plan will be developed by state-of-the-art reviews, identification of possible and relevant societal developments and alternatives to transport. We identify relevant research gaps and product developments through contacts in the USA and Japan. The focus of GOAL is on land-based transport.Current predictions of EUROSTAT show that “The share of people aged 65 years or over in the total population is projected to increase from 17.1% to 30.0% and the number is projected to rise from 84.6 million in 2008 to 151.5 million in 2060. Similarly, the number of people aged 80 years or over is projected to almost triple from 21.8 million in 2008 to 61.4 million in 2060”. In order to keep them actively involved in society and maintain independence, it is vital that older people, now and in the future, are able to travel and have access to transport.In GOAL we describe the physical and mental characteristics of older people and use these to develop profiles which will represent the range of characteristics to be formed in the population now and in the future. These profiles will be used to explore in a structured way the needs while driving, using public transport, walking and cycling and the relevant information needed before and during travel. The profiles will also be used to address additional issues of older people and other developments which may impact on travel decisions in the future. There is considerable expertise in the consortium related to all aspects of the project. However, to validate our work and to ensure that it will have the widest acceptance, we will be running a series of workshops to enable the widest constituency of stakeholder bodies and experts to interact with the study team. The research and development needs will be identified and used to develop an action plan to achieve the goal of growing older and staying mobile.""