Active ageing in developing countries? – trip generation and tour complexity of older people in Metro Manila

There is by now quite a substantial body of literature discussing the impact of an ageing population in developed countries on travel needs and required changes to transport policy. As many newly developed and developing countries are following demographic trends of “first world” countries, but offset by some decades, the problem is, however, not limited to the industrialised nations. The focus of this paper is on Metro Manila and analyses travel patterns by those aged 60 or over. Trip frequency and tour complexity are analysed with ordered probit regression, separating the effects of socio-demographic characteristics as well as land-use patterns. The results are compared to observations made for cities in developed countries, in particular London as an example for a city in a first world country. We show that there is a more pronounced decrease in total trips made with increasing age in Manila. However, analysing for specific trip purposes we find, similarly to trends in developed countries, that the number of recreational trips is fairly constant in all age groups. Recreational activities also seem to take more time per day than average for younger old, possibly indicating the advent of similar active ageing trends as in industrialised nations. The paper concludes by discussing some implications given future economic trends and advocates that better datasets from developing and newly developed countries are required for urban planning in developing countries.