A Co-Experience Toolkit: investigating the issues of the pavement environment and the relationship with elderly pedestrians

Abstract

Pedestrian pavements play an important role in assisting or restricting the quality of walking. Poorly designed and maintained pavements may pose a challenge to the walking experience of older adults. This research aims to investigate pavement problems and their effects on elderly pedestrians. An empirical study was conducted in London with 41 older people aged over 60 who were fit to walk. In this study, we classified 16 influencing factors of the pavements and four adverse effects of them and identified 13 behaviours that elderly pedestrians displayed when they encountered the pavement factors. In addition, 17 recommendations were proposed in order to improve the pavement environment based on the requirement of the elderly pedestrians. Taking a step further, we developed a co-experience toolkit that could be used by researchers and professionals involved in the study of pavement design and urban planning to assess and improve the pavement environment with older adults. This toolkit is designed to encourage the users to understand the relationship between pavements and elderly pedestrians better.