PROFESSOR JOHN D NELSON Director, Centre for Transport Research September 2008 Inclusive Digital Economy: Transport Cluster

Overview Transport in the Inclusive Digital Economy Case study: Older people, health, ICT, quality of life and transport in Aberdeenshire Future Ideas for Research

Transport in the IDE The UK Government’s Foresight Initiative [ ] assessed how Intelligent Infrastructure Systems [IIS] might evolve over the 50 years to The Transport IIS study explored the potential impact of increasing intelligence in infrastructure provision on the key policy areas of sustainable living, travel behaviour and how new intelligence might encourage multi-modal transport. Issues highlighted were:  Environmental  Technological capabilities  Policy challenges  Courageous decision-making  Sustainable living  Changing travel behaviour  Connecting travel modes intelligently (Source: Transport page on IDE Website by Dr Martin Higginson)

Transport, ICT and Health in Aberdeenshire Scottish context –Internet access has increased rapidly but for those aged 65+ only a minority have access at home. –65-74 age group home access is 18%. –“There is clearly a need for alternative channels of information to be maintained so that the majority - without Internet access - are not disadvantaged.” (Older People In Scotland: Results from the Scottish Household Survey , p34) –Men more likely to access the Internet than women (cf above ref) (Source: IDE Sub-Project Report by CTR, University of Aberdeen)

65 + Concern with Trust ICT MobilityAccessibility s are fine as they can be left on the system until the person connects. However, the sender can never be sure if the was received e.g. spam filters sometimes cut out the message. Mobile phones are less reliable as a lot of people carry them for emergencies and do not like them switched on in public places. Messages left are not always picked up so the sender must double check Male, Mobile telephones are good to have in cases of emergency (assuming one can get a signal) Male, Neither of these methods are of any use to me and, even if I had the use of them, I would not use them for the purposes stated. I prefer a personal ‘hands-on’ approach, which I trust more than the technology. Male, 75+ I use Internet more to find accessible accommodation rather than transport as it is easier to explain to taxi or rail what help exactly I need to complete a journey. I wish the Internet/computers specifically were more reliable less likely to go wrong than always coming out with new models Female, 65-74, disabled

Focus Groups in context Relevance to life and of content as well as accessible design factors should be taken into account Feeling excluded is not sufficient motivation to take up new ICT, but targeted ‘training’ may help Choice of approach, i.e. non-ICT options, still need to run alongside to avoid social exclusion of older ‘unwilling/unable’

Future Ideas for Research Transport and Health is a fruitful area of enquiry: –A longitudinal study on differences a participatory approach can make to both ICT developers and users –Quantifying accessibility problem faced by health service: promoting ICT intervention –Quantifying ICT impact on health transport service

Contact details: Centre for Transport Research Professor John D. Nelson Dr Paulus Aditjandra, Research Fellow Kate Pangbourne, Research Assistant