Senior Evacuation Project: Ensuring Emergency Transport for Seniors at Risk
In an emergency, will the seniors in your community (or perhaps even your parents) be evacuated safely?
For millions of seniors who may lack access to reliable transportation, have physical or mental limitations, or rely on special life-support equipment, getting to safety during a widespread crisis—a wildfire, flood, earthquake, or power outage—is not guaranteed. With the population aging and climate change accelerating related disasters, seniors are more vulnerable than ever.
Many seniors already struggle to navigate current transit service options, which can be confusing, require lengthy applications, and lack visibility, such as those listed on 211.org. But in a crisis, finding a ride to safety can be even more daunting, if not deadly. .
The Senior Evacuation Project addresses this growing problem by developing a reliable, responsive system that helps to match seniors at risk with reliable transportation options. in and around San Leandro, CA. The project engages with key stakeholders—leaders in San Leandro and Alameda County as well as public and private transit operators, volunteers, and senior residents—to identify the needs of the senior and a provider capable of coming to their aid with the right capacity, equipment, and language skills. This project represents a proof-of-concept (POC) solution that uses low-overhead technology to streamline effective evacuation transportation matching when its needed most.
Through a partnership with Automicle (Netherlands) and Beckn Protocol (Bangalore, India) located we are developing a solution that will revolutionize senior emergency transit and relieve the worry of countless seniors and their families.
Currently, seniors and transportation providers have difficulty discovering each other. Government agencies are investing millions to ensure transit services for seniors are available but so far, the problem has remained largely unsolved. Two back-to-back evacuation alerts (a tsunami warning and a gas leak) in December of 2024 clearly proved that San Leandro did not have the necessary plans and resources in place to address this critical situation.
What makes our approach different? By combining our understanding of the needs of the senior community, our awareness of climate change’s worsening impact on our weather and environment, current community funding challenges, and our knowledge of a variety of technologies and developers, our project is already on track to provide senior in the San Leandro area with successful evacuation planning, processes, and outcomes.
By assessing the public and private transportation options available to seniors across the region— including services from BART, AC Transit, and the nine-county Metropolitan Transportation Commission as well as the availability of city and volunteer vehicles and drivers, we are improving the communication and coordination between transit providers to ensure that seniors in San Leandro are transported safely in case of a widespread emergency.
Funding for the Senior Evacuation Project is being made possible through city and private grants and public-private partnerships. For more information or to get involved in this project, please contact us at team@weaccel.io.
