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Paratransit: Is it within Peoples’ Future Mobility Mind-set?”
Prof Laurie Pickup, International Director, Vectos Ltd and Hon Prof of European Transport Policy, Centre for Transport Research
ABSTRACT
In anticipating the future, travel decisions will – as they have been in the past – be based upon routine and habit. Mobility is: freedom, social status and power relationships, the ability to get around, and the relationships you make.
New technologies are introducing greater flexibility and control to persons in considering how they can move about, expanding what mobility can mean. New technology is producing innovations that create flexibility and volatility. This contributes to people’s perception that they have control of flexibility. Technology then is contributing to changes in how people make travel decisions.
Changes in mindsets also influence how people make travel decisions. Today, the course of life is not determined by age. There is a “cult of agelessness”. And a developing mindset sees the years past age 60 as a time of possibility, not simply loss. People are increasingly demanding mobility solutions that are customized, that translate into “on demand delivery.” This leads directly to and expands potential for paratransit, particularly as technological advances can address these demands more effectively than in the past.
Fundamental changes in lifestyle to which paratransit solutions, aided by technology, are well suited include that it is valuable to populations of all ages and that it is a mobility tool that promotes inclusiveness.