ABSTRACT
For mobility to be considered as a human right for the disabled and the elderly, it is apparent that transport needs an advocate of nation-statesman status: a Wilberforce, a Lincoln, a Gandhi or a Monnet who, by example and influence, will for once and all time help people eliminate from society the argument that to provide mobility to the transport disadvantaged is a question of economics rather than social justice. The 5th International Conference on Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Handicapped Persons is a forum of the United States Transportation Research Board Committee which has now promoted five conferences within a span of eleven years. Those in the field of transport have seen the development of this area of interest over a period of twenty years, since the first stirrings of realization of the problems of mobility deprivation by planners in the United States. Disabled persons and the elderly have always known the problems of immobility and isolation.
