Senior Services
Seniors Population
The demographic information collected in Task 2 indicated that there are approximately 70,472 residents over age 65 in Monmouth County. The highest number of seniors can be found in Middletown Township (7,919), Neptune Township (4,779), Long Branch Township (4,419) and Howell Township (3,578). The highest percentage of seniors are found in Interlaken (27.6%) and Spring Lake Heights (27.2%). The senior population in Monmouth County is diverse, in income as well as geographic location. Their travel needs also vary significantly.
Existing Services
The transportation available to seniors includes the services provided by: the Monmouth County Transportation System (SCAT). Additionally, seniors with qualifying disabilities can use ACCESS Link, NJ Transit’s ADA paratransit service for trips along the NJ Transit routes; and seniors who are clients of human service agencies can use the transportation provided by the individual agencies.
In general, the transportation services for seniors are provided on weekdays between the hours 8:30am and 3:30pm and are limited to local, municipal or county boundaries. These services all require advance reservations -- ranging from 1 day to 14 days advance notice. Analysis of the annual passenger trips provided by selected programs and the existing senior population indicates annual passenger trip to senior population ratio of 3.2 annual trips/senior resident.
Transportation Needs
The major service needs identified for seniors in transportation surveys include:
- More service for medical trips
- More service on evenings and weekends
- More access to shopping
- More service to rural parts of the county
- Service to out-of-county medical facilities
- Service to adult day care facilities
- Service for non-emergency ambulance that is affordable
- Service for church and social activities
- Lower cost service
- Improvements in trip travel times and in service frequency
- Improved communications and information
The service needs identified in the surveys consistently indicate the need to increase services available to the senior population.
Page Last Updated: 11/29/2010 8:50:00 AM