In-Vehicle Intelligent Transportation Systems Safety and Mobility of Older Drivers

摘要

Many older drivers depend on the automobile for shopping for food, visiting the doctor, socializing with friends, and traveling. Older drivers in North America, with lifelong habitual patterns of automobile use, are not likely to give up driving willingly to use public transit or other transportation alternatives. Large cities tend to be designed with limited access to essential needs (e.g., food, clothing, medicine, and social contact), which only can be met by driving. Health and financial problems, general declines in ability, specific driving skill deterioration, and poor visual health in older drivers can lead to reductions in driving or to driving cessation. Many but not all older drivers become aware of their deficiencies and compensate in several ways. Restrictions to mobility from policy or age-related declines in driving capability limit the lifestyles of elderly people. Maintaining an independent and meaningful lifestyle that is supported by driving requires an array of policy, service, infrastructure, and technical solutions. In-vehicle intelligent transportation systems (ITS) applications are an obvious technical solution. ITS applications are the fusion of advances in wireless communication technologies, automotive electronics, computing, and the Global Positioning System (GPS). Various ITS applications, such as route guidance, emergency vehicle location and response, vision enhancement systems (VES), and collision warning systems, appear to be applicable to older drivers. In the larger context of interventions, ITS applications represent a small, unproven fraction of available counter-measures. Few in-vehicle ITS applications currently are used by drivers, and fewer still are used by older drivers. However, this is likely to change dramatically in the new century. Ideally, ITS applications would increase older-driver mobility and safety. Pragmatically, given the available empirical evidence, the impact of in-vehicle ITS on older-driver safety and mobility is uncertain. The use of in-vehicle technologies by older drivers has not been a research priority in North America. For example, of the two recent books on ITS and human factors, only one briefly mentioned older drivers.