Accessibility Index of Indian Tractors - A Case Study

摘要

Tractors that are intended to be used by Indian farmers must be designed based on anthropometric data of male agricultural workers to enhance efficiency, comfort and safety of the tractor drivers. The arrangement of controls on a tractor is the crucial deciding factor for the comfort and efficiency of tractor drivers. The quantitative method of Banks and Boone (1981) to compare the alternate controls arrangement was followed to study the accessibility indices of five Indian tractors. The location of controls from the seat reference point (SRP) and their ranked frequency of use for the tractors were determined to calculate the accessibility index. The accessibility indices for the tractors were negative and ranged -0.350 to -0.025. It was observed that the control arrangements on the tractor were not within easy reach of Indian drivers. Therefore, it may be concluded that frequently operated controls on the tractors should be located in or very close to optimum reach area of the operators for better tractor workplace design.