2026 Volume 12 Issue 2 Pages A_167-A_175
In Japan, there is a growing movement to encourage the return of driver's licenses among the elderly, but there has been a reduction or withdrawal of railway and bus routes that serve as means of transportation. In response, the introduction of community buses and demand-responsive transport is being promoted to complement these changes. In this study, a public transportation convenience index that takes into account temporal convenience and demand-responsive transport was introduced, and analyses were conducted on the relationship between public transportation convenience and elderly people's license-holding status, as well as the relationship between outing behavior and individual attributes and residential area characteristics. The results showed that the proportion of license holders is lower in areas with high public transportation convenience. In addition, for elderly people who 'do not have a license' or who have 'voluntarily returned their license,' the proportion of those going out is higher in areas with high convenience, and among elderly people who 'do not have a license' in high-convenience areas, the use of public transportation was found to be higher.
