Senior Consultant - Access and Inclusion Lead – Inclusive Environments, ARUP & Senior Policy and Partnerships Advisor, Sustrans

Mei-Yee Man Oram is the UK Access and Inclusion lead in Arup, leading the team in embedding inclusive design into the built environment and all interacting systems.

Mei is a consultant member of the National Register of Access Consultants (NRAC); an internationally registered access consultant with GAATES as part of their ICAC-BE programme; a trained auditor for ISEMOA, which works to make European cities, towns, and regions' more accessible; and a volunteer for several charities.

Mei believes 'inclusion is at the heart of all work to reach all sectors of society, whether at the building or city scale'. Her work includes looking forward at trends and changing demographics, working with her clients to consider whether the designs will be suitable for the future context.

Rosie Holding works in the Research and Monitoring Unit at Sustrans, primarily coordinating the data collection for Bike Life, the UK’s largest assessment of cycling development in cities.

Rosie has experience in a wide range of research and evaluation projects, including workplaces, street design and an economic appraisal of reopening a disused railway tunnel for walking and cycling.

Rosie’s interests lie in ensuring high quality data is collected to ensure the strongest possible evidence base supports decision making on active travel across the UK.

Presentation Title: Designing cities for older people to cycle

Older people continue to be constrained by a number of barriers that affect how they travel, and the experience of those journeys. This is especially true when it comes to everyday cycling in many UK cities. This paper draws together existing evidence, alongside primary data from 7,700 surveys in seven cities as part of Bike Life and research from focus groups in UK cities.

It explores the reasons for the disparity between levels of cycling among different age groups. Our research shows older people are aware of the benefits of cycling but a step change is required to ensure our cities are designed to meet their needs. We need to better account for older people’s needs across policy, planning and practice.