Habits and potential difficulties between elderly users of bus services

In November we concluded the analysis of data that were gathered in an observational study among elderly users of public transportation in Ljubljana urban area. The methodology used was developed for the purpose. The aim was to monitor the habits and potential difficulties between elderly users of bus services. The observations were conducted in different routes and in different times during the day. 331 elderly bus users were observed. The detailed results will be reported as part of the conference held in April 2016. The results show, that the major hindrance are items that are carried by the bus user as much as 60%, followed by difficulties with getting in and out of the bus (18.4 per cent), and balance los also in 18.4 per cent of bus users. Some of users demonstrate more than one difficulty (Fig 1).

Fig. 1 Percentage of difficulties detected among bus users.

When persons who lost their balance were separately analysed as much as 60 per cent of observed balance losses happened during acceleration or deceleration of the bus (Fig 2).

Fig 2 The percentage of individual reasons for balance los.