A Composite Index to Assess Seniors’ Critical Mobility Dependence: The Case Study of Rural Northern Italian Municipalities

Population aging and urbanization are two global phenomena posing severe challenges on the transport system given the diversity of personal, social, economic, and contextual aspects on which the life quality of the elderly depends. In this regard, the aim of this study consisted in the development of a composite index to assess the criticality level of seniors’ mobility dependence, which is intended as the combination of a mobility dependence index and of a risk index. The former expresses the influence of private mobility on the older people, while the latter indicates possible vulnerabilities affecting such a transport solution. Both the indices are, in turn, made of a series of weighted performance indicators which characterize the respective topic. The proposed index has been applied to the case study of some rural Northern Italian municipalities, leading to a ranking of those areas. To this end, the priorities of indicators have been defined through a multi-attribute evaluation procedure involving a panel of experts in the social, economic and transport field, to whom a structured questionnaire has been administered. In addition, great attention has been put on gender disparities in seniors’ driving availability and ability other than on their need of accessing healthcare services. The graphical representation of the index values has supported the analysis of results, which decision-makers, i.e., operators and institutions, can take advantage of to assess different scenarios of interventions and thus to develop incentive polices.