Abstract:
Nowadays as one of the key areas of urban planning and design, health concerns of the community, with high vulnerability on older population have re-appear. Over the time, the elderly population around the world are predicted to increase and Sri Lanka follows the same trend. In this context, the concept of ‘Age-friendly Cities’ introduced by WHO comes to play. WHO has identified, ‘Transport and Mobility’ as one of the eight priority domains for policy action in order to build age-friendly cities. Since without transportation, other facilities and services are inaccessible, transportation plays a major role in a city design. How to effectively understand the age-friendliness of a city’s transport system and diagnose the underlying problems of urban development have therefore become critical in managing this demographic change. Previous studies have not yet provided a proper methodology for quantification of age-friendliness of transport system in Sri Lankan cities. This study aims to evaluate the age-friendliness of transport system in Sri Lankan cities by incorporating quantitative indicator-based examination. Three case study areas; Negombo, Kurunegala and Kandy, were employed and the results show that the age-friendliness of transport system in each city is 59.29%, 68.25% and 66.98% respectively.
