ACTIVE TRAVEL AND BUILT ENVIRONMENT OF ELDERLY: A REVIEW

Abstract

The built environment is considered to be a key factor to promote the active travel (AT) of the elderly in neighbourhood. This study seeks to comprehensively identify the built environmental factors influencing active travel and to show how those environmental factors impact active travel the old adults. It reviewed the literature on neighbourhood-built environmental correlated with AT among older adults. The study found that most of the research concentrated on walking, which was associated with density, land use mix, connectivity access to services, friendly infrastructure，aesthetics，destination，safety. The results showed that the research was concentrated in developed areas and countries, developing countries were seldomly involved. Related research was mainly carried out in urban areas especially in the metropolitan area. The weather has been reported as an important factor in the elderly’s travel but was not widely tested before. Information technology has a wide-ranging impact on the activities of urban residents and the increase of online leisure activities can also reduce the daily non-essential travel time of residents. In future research, more attention needs to be paid to developing areas, small city, and rural communities. ICT changed the way people live, the interaction with other humans, and physical space, it also needs to pay more attention in this field.