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Powered wheelchair/scooter loan scheme: Scootability, Camden & Islington, London

A4.2 ScootAbility is a pilot loan scheme, run by two Inner London Boroughs, that provides older and disabled people with Personal Electric Vehicles ( PEVs) for one to three days at a time. The objective is to offer a flexible and personalised alternative to more conventional forms of accessible transport, and so address the problem of social exclusion and increase quality of life, through mobility.

Description of the scheme

A4.3 Whilst the phenomenon of social exclusion is primarily associated with communities and groups of people, a lack of personal mobility can lead to individuals becoming isolated, withdrawn from society, and, in extreme cases, virtually housebound. Although travel horizons can be severely limited by a lack of affordable, accessible and reliable public transport for people who cannot afford a private car, the lack of personal mobility can prevent an individual from accessing what affordable transport is available.

A4.4 The consequences of low personal mobility to the individual are multi-faceted, and include an inability to access key goods and services, such as healthcare, retail facilities, employment, education and training. This results in the individual being on a low income, with poor prospects of self-improvement, and either relying on friends, relatives, a carer or a neighbour for lifts and assistance, or having to have social services brought to their home. The issue for society in general, and for local authorities in particular, is that this is an expensive means of administering care. For the socially excluded person there is the added impact on self esteem, self confidence and morale - this, in turn, affects the person's physical and mental well-being.

A4.5 ScootAbility provides an innovative approach to reducing social exclusion by loaning Personal Electric Vehicles ( PEVs) - mobility scooters or powered wheelchairs - to older, physically disabled residents. The objectives of the scheme are to increase quality of life by:

• Promoting well-being & independence by serving the needs of people with mobility difficulties, enabling choice and independent access to health, leisure & social facilities.
• Providing an alternative to door-to-door transport and access to other services & facilities, thereby improving the general independence of participants.
• Reducing social exclusion by increasing the transport options available
• Overcoming barriers to transport in a cost-effective way
• Reducing reliance on conventional door-to-door transport

A4.6 The scheme is aimed at people aged 55 and over, living in Camden or Islington, with mobility impairments, including many isolated/housebound people; the scheme has targeted people from different ethnic and faith communities in particular. The long term objective is to build a permanent scheme based on feedback from clients, which can be used by all disabled people.

A4.7 The scheme promotes independent travel through a door-to-door delivery service of the PEVs. The scooters are on loan for one to three days at a time (including weekends), thereby providing flexible travel alternatives to conventional public or door-to-door transport. PEVs are delivered to the home of participants overnight; full training, health and safety assessments and related support are provided.

A4.8 The scooters themselves have a range of some 25 miles, and maximum speed of 4 mph. Some are deployed at fixed locations such as day/resource centres and sheltered housing schemes in the two Boroughs. A project manager and trainer are required for such a scheme; other requirements are for office space, computer equipment and software, secure storage, delivery vehicles and training hardware.

A4.9 It is intended that ScootAbility should tie in with a successful Urban Bus Challenge bid, PlusBus, to create a network of linked services that allows the user to make longer journeys than would normally be possible by scooter alone. PlusBus allows individuals who have difficulty in using conventional public transport the opportunity to travel by bus door-to-door. PEVs can help mobility impaired people overcome the physical barriers to conventional public transport services, such as distance to bus stops or the lack of waiting facilities, and improve the convenience and service delivery of accessible transport services, for example by facilitating direct unaided access to vehicles. It is also expected that the service will form links with Camden Shopmobility to provide mutual benefits, such as the sharing of vehicles.

Area and population

A4.10 The scheme covers the Inner London Boroughs of Camden and Islington. The Boroughs are located to the North of Central London and lie adjacent to each other, with Camden to the West and Islington to the East (See Figure A4.1). The populations of these Boroughs in 2001 were 198,000 and 175,797, respectively; as a reference point for Scotland, each of these Boroughs has a population roughly equivalent to that of Aberdeen (184,788 in 2001) ¹.

Figure A4.1 The London Burgh of Camden and Islington

A4.11 Demographic data shown in Table A4.1 indicate that the combined over-55 population of Islington and Camden is almost 68,000. If it is estimated that around two-thirds of older people have some form of disability, and that, say, 10% of these are able to make use of some form of scooter loan scheme, then the client-base for the two \boroughs would be around 4,500 people.

Table A4.1: Older populations of Camden and Islington. (Data supplied by the LB Camden and the LB Islington)

Number and type of trips facilitated

A4.12 ScootAbility aims to fill a gap in the provision of current services, such as Taxicard, Dial-a-Ride and PlusBus, because it is thought that these services limit choice to travel whenever and wherever people wish. Both Camden and Islington run "PlusBus" schemes, these being operated by the in-house provider and Islington Community Transport respectively. The scheme addresses the need for fairly local trips, which are too long for members of the scheme to walk, and too short and/or complex for local door-to-door transport, or for taxis or other forms of conventional public transport. ScootAbility offers scope for multi-purpose trips. The precise nature of participants' use of the PEVs is in the process of being studied.

Parties involved in the planning, funding and operation of the Scheme

A4.13 The demand for such a scheme was generated by an Older People's Health Improvement Study ( HImP) study "Access to Quality of Life", in 2000-2001, where widespread consultation was undertaken with older and disabled people. The scheme is jointly run by the London Boroughs of Camden and Islington, but is located in Camden. The project is being delivered through a group including the London Borough of Islington Transport Planning Team, the London Borough of Camden Accessible Transport Unit, Camden Promoting Independence and the Islington Primary Care Trust, as well as Camden and Islington Neighbourhood Renewal Fund and First Senior Group, which provides access and mobility solutions for older and disabled people.

Sustainability and plans for expansion

A4.14 The scheme has wide multi-agency support, including Transport for London (TfL), especially as it links in with the Mayor's Transport Strategy and Local Implementation Plan. The project currently has funding until 2006, and regular monitoring is to be carried out in the mean time.

Evidence of measurable outcomes, cross-sector benefits etc.

A4.15 The initial "Access to Quality of Life" project trialled a number of transport and transport substitute options with the aim of overcoming barriers to travel for older and disabled people, including a three-month loan of a fleet of mobility scooters which were delivered to the home of a sample of twelve people, and left for a period of several days at a time. The findings of this initial pilot showed that the provision of mobility scooters provided an effective alternative to accessing conventional public transport for this group of people. The travel patterns of participants were recorded both before and after the loan scheme commenced (through travel diaries) giving indicative data on the effect on users travel patterns and modes of transport used. Evidence of modal shift is shown in Figure A4.2. In particular it was found that the scheme reduced car trips provided by friend and relatives. Although the results from a very small sample (around a dozen participants chose the scooter "intervention"), the results are indicative of a desire by older people to maintain independent living as far as possible.

Figure A4.2: Evidence of modal shift as a result of the pilot scheme. (Data supplied by the LB Camden and the LB Islington)

A4.16 Observation of users of scooters on the initial pilot scheme suggested that the availability of scooters allowed older and disabled people to make journeys in a fundamentally different (and essentially more efficient) way than they would have done if they'd had to rely on accessible and public transport options alone. Instead of making all journeys as complete individual return journeys to each purpose in turn - particularly for journeys where the logistics and physical difficulty of "chaining" trips was considerable - users quickly realised that a PEV could enable them to "chain" journeys on the back of a single return journey, or directly from home, as walking restrictions were no longer an issue.

A4.17 Feedback received at the end of the scheme was extremely positive, and indicated that quality of life had been improved for the duration of the loan period.

A4.18 The current pilot scheme is requiring clients to record their experience of the scheme and the impact on their lives, using travel diaries and camera journals. An evaluation of the scheme, based on this user feedback, should be available in the Autumn of 2005.

A4.19 This evaluation is aiming to,

• Measure the impact of the ScootAbility Service on older people's lives (over the span of the pilot).
• Identify changes in levels of independence, confidence and social & psychological well-being (less reliance on friends, neighbours and carers for trips and journeys which they would otherwise find difficult or unaffordable, especially those without a car)
• Assess whether ScootAbility achieves green travel objectives by leading to a reduction in private car trips by ScootAbility members (including trips with a friend, carer, family member or using a taxi-card). The project aims to introduce sustainable, environmentally friendly vehicles in order to reduce existing journeys undertaken by cars, taxis and minibuses.
• Develop a benchmark for London, and eventually for a nationwide scheme, by establishing a framework for delivering similar schemes
• Identify potential for transfer of local authority funding from door-to-door transport. ScootAbility, by its very nature, has the potential to make a contribution in areas where the demand responsive sector traditionally does not. For example, Dial-a-Ride schemes typically cater very little for disabled people wishing to access employment; this is mainly because of booking procedures being unable to guarantee that members can book the same trip at the same time each day.
• Identify ridership on the mainstream low-floor bus service by members using powered wheelchairs. There is the possibility of the scheme having a positive impact on the use of other public transport modes, since it aims to provide access to mainstream low floor buses for residents using powered wheelchairs; TfL is particularly keen to identify the impact on public transport use, and to make improvements to its accessibility.
• Identify specific benefits accrued to older black & ethnic minority residents, and women (both groups are recognised as suffering greater levels of social exclusion).
• Identify possible cross-sector benefits in terms of employment opportunities for members, including voluntary work
• Assess the impact of the scheme on the need for health services supplied through home visits.
• Identify whether PEVs enable benefits to health by allowing ScootAbility members to seek out better and more varied food products, and other lowest cost retail opportunities through greater mobility and access to choice.
• Understand the state of the street environment as it relates to PEV accessibility through feedback from Scootability members, and so identify obstacles & problems and areas for improvement.
• Improve understanding of lifestyle patterns (better understanding of travel needs)
• Measure the sustainability of the project.

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