Presented at: TRANSED 2012: 13th international conference on mobility and transport for elderly and disabled persons: September 17-20, 2012, New Delhi, India

In Europe people in urban areas, generally have access to some sort of public transport (PT). Sweden is one of the European countries with high level of ambition trying to increase the proportion of the older and impaired travelling with PT. Since a few years ago there is a programme about to increase accessibility and user-friendliness, and the program declares PT should be accessible for all older and impaired persons. However, this is not yet the case. Still many older persons (65+) do not use ordinary PT at all. The purpose of the present study is to investigate older people’s visions of their opportunities to use various transportation modes for daily travel and especially their experiences of PT. Methods and materials: in total 30 individual in depth interviews and 9 focus groups with older people. The youngest is about 62 and the oldest is 93 years. Some of the informants in the study (more men than women) never or very seldom go by bus even if there is a bus stop close to their home. Whereas many of them travel a lot and use different transport modes frequently. The study shows there are pertinent gendered variations in the use of transportation modes. The differences are not always due to issues of accessibility, but rather to habits and life course trajectories. According to the stories told by older informants from both urban and rural areas, it is concluded that habits and experiences during the life course influence the travel mode choice and options in later life. Previous mobility patterns have an effect on mobility patterns today. It was also found that the informants in this study travelled a lot more than expected from the researchers in the beginning of the study: one or two trips out of the home every day are not unusual. Even among the oldest, for example 80-90-year old people, many like go on trips for shopping, and visit recreation centres, restaurants, and to see children, grandchildren and friends several times a week. How the mobility patterns are accomplished and accounted for by the subjects’ in this study contradicts previous apprehensions about the increasing number of older people with unfulfilled mobility needs. Mobility barriers are noticeable but also strategies the interviewees have developed to make every day travel work. We conclude that service route traffic and flex routes provide better travel opportunities for older people with minor disabilities than ordinary public transport. However for those who are not experienced at booking their trips, the requirement of doing so seems to be a barrier to their travelling. Also waiting time and the inconvenience of not being able to control the travel agenda by themselves could be barriers. On the other hand, ordinary public transport is considered to be too busy, too crowded and sometimes the interviewees worries if they could not find a seat on the bus. Many older people are quite aware of their abilities and they choose transport mode according to both their life experiences and the current situation. To add knowledge about older people’s experiences and choices from a life course perspective, will increase readiness to understand their mobility patterns now and in the future.