08.07.2026

Silver Ways at the CityLab XII summer school in Antwerp, Belgium

From June 29 to July 3, 2026, Silver Ways took part in the CityLab XII: Age-Friendly Cities summer school at the University of Antwerp. The week offered an interdisciplinary view of what makes a city age-friendly, covering mobility and transport, urban infrastructure, housing, community support, and health services. Beyond the sessions, it was valuable to connect with a wide range of actors in the field: as part of the week's group assignment, we pitched our work directly to older adults, while Silver Ways itself was introduced to fellow participants throughout the week, among them SMART-AGE, another DUT-funded project working on improving cities for older adults.

19.06.2026

Silver Ways at the Mobile Tartu Conference 2026 / AGILE 2026 - Tartu, Estonia

From June 8 to 10, 2026, Silver Ways was presented at the Mobile Tartu Conference in Tartu, Estonia, in a talk titled "Leisure Routes Among Older Adults: A Route-Structure Model for Origin-to-Origin Walking Trips." The presentation introduced a route-structure model for leisure walking, built from 171 closed-loop walking routes collected in Uppsala. Four spatial rules, directional continuity, bounded exploration, familiarity with known streets, and the feasibility of returning home, were shown to structure how older adults move through a neighborhood without a fixed destination. These rules, estimated with a conditional logit model, were embedded in a generator that produces synthetic walking routes for comparison with the observed data. The conference also brought together Silver Ways team members from Uppsala and Heidelberg, who continued on to the AGILE 2026 conference, held in the same city the following week, for further exchange on the project.

29.05.2026

Pilot Urban Living Lab walks in Heidelberg, Uppsala and Kayseri

In early summer, we ran Pilot Urban Living Labs in Heidelberg, Uppsala and Kayseri: structured city walks assessing everyday mobility from an older adult's perspective. Participants rated sidewalk width and condition, surface quality, bench spacing, shade trees, and sun exposure along a short neighborhood route. 

Running the walks in parallel across three urban contexts let us test the concept beyond a single setting, identify local adaptations, and build a shared methodology for co-design work with municipalities. 

As one participant put it: "You stop seeing the street as a backdrop and start seeing it as a series of decisions the city has already made for you." These insights will feed into the Silver Ways routing system, which will be validated and refined through the Urban Living Labs with older adults planned for September. 

07.05.2026

Workshop: How does it feel to walk the city as an older adult?  

To understand firsthand what is at stake in our project, we teamed up with the Geriatric Center at Heidelberg University Hospital to explore the physical and sensory challenges older adults face in cities, using Age Simulation Suits. 

Working in pairs, participants took turns wearing suits that added around 18 kilograms of distributed weight, a knee brace restricting movement, glasses simulating visual impairment, and headphones replicating hearing loss. Leaving the room felt difficult, and stairs proved the greatest challenge: several participants chose the lift instead, and people normally fit were out of breath after just 100 meters. 

One participant reflected: "It is incredible how fast one feels isolated. Once you no longer hear or see well, the outside world starts to fade and one is left alone in their own mind." 

17.08.2025

Workshop with Seniors in Mannheim-Vogelstang Provides Valuable Insights on Mobility

On August 14, 2025, a workshop with seniors took place at the Fritz-Esser-Haus in Mannheim-Vogelstang. Participants mapped their personal walking routes and shared experiences about their daily mobility, offering detailed feedback on both opportunities and barriers for walking in the neighborhood. Their perspectives are crucial for developing a senior-friendly routing system and provide guidance on how to make Mannheim more walkable and livable. The event highlighted the importance of including older citizens’ voices in urban planning — ultimately benefitting all generations. We thank the team of the AWO Fritz-Esser-Haus and all participants for their active involvement.

05.08.2025

New Paper on Route Choice and Navigation for Older Pedestrians

On August 18, 2025, the Silver Ways team published the article “Route choice to inform navigation system design and accessibility analysis for older pedestrians: a scoping review” in the Journal of Transport & Health. The study examined how older adults make walking route choices, emphasizing safety and comfort over speed. By reviewing existing research, the authors highlighted critical environmental factors such as pavement quality, benches, shade, and perceived safety that should inform age-friendly navigation systems. The findings point to new directions for designing pedestrian routing tools that better reflect the needs of older populations.

Published in Journal of Transport & Health, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2025.102151

05.06.2025

Sidewalk Tagathon: Mapping for Age-Friendly Cities

On June 3, 2025, the Geography Institute in Heidelberg hosted a Mapathon under the theme “Sidewalk Tagathon: Enhancing OSM for Senior Walkability.” Participants gathered in the lecture hall on Berliner Straße to map smoothness and surface tags within the Mannheim area, contributing valuable data to the ongoing Silver Ways project. This initiative develops an age-friendly routing system to improve mobility for older citizens, helping to identify safe, comfortable, and accessible walking routes. The lively event welcomed both newcomers and experienced mappers, combining community engagement with meaningful contributions to urban sustainability.

15.05.2025

Networking for Sustainable Urban Futures in Bonn

On May 13, 2025, researchers from Heidelberg University – Prof. Sven Lautenbach, Dr. Kathrin Foshag, and Johannes Huber – together with Dr. Philipp Kadel from the Municipality of Mannheim, took part in the national networking event of the Driving Urban Transitions Partnership (DUT) in Bonn. Hosted at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the gathering brought together projects and stakeholders working on sustainable mobility and the “15-minute City” concept. The event provided a valuable platform to exchange ideas, explore synergies, and strengthen collaboration across German initiatives dedicated to shaping more sustainable urban futures.