Social Network and Dwelling Characteristics that Influence Ridesharing Behavior of Seniors

By several measures, older people travel less than younger people do. Riding in cars as passengers (ridesharing) is the second most common mode of transportation for those older than 65 (driving being first), and it is a prime coping strategy for mobility loss. Yet little is known about the factors that influence ridesharing. The decision by seniors to rideshare was considered in view of their social network characteristics and their living arrangements. Two hypotheses were evaluated: seniors with larger social networks will rideshare more frequently and those living in retirement communities will rideshare more frequently than those living in the community at large. With the use of survey data collected in California from retirement community– and community-dwelling seniors, a binary logit model was specified to test these hypotheses and find conditional support for both hypotheses. Social network size, on its own, does not strongly influence ridesharing. Yet respondents who participated more frequently in social activities were more likely to rideshare regularly. Respondents living in retirement communities were more likely to be regular ridesharers, although whether a respondent lived in a retirement community did not enter the model, perhaps because of significant differences between retirement community– and community-dwelling seniors on five of the six variables in the final model. Those variables captured the influence of living in a retirement community on ridesharing. In conclusion, the decision by seniors to rideshare on a regular basis seems to be a choice made of necessity and used as one of several ways to circumvent mobility limitations; furthermore, seniors with more active social networks are better placed than others to rideshare regularly.