Elsevier

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences

Volume 104, 2 December 2013, Pages 1088-1094
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences

Impact of Elderly Road Users Characteristics at Intersection

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.11.204Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Abstract

India's elderly population growth rate is estimated to be 8% and size of elderly population (+60 and -70) in India is likely to be 69 million by 2016. This implies that six-tenths of the population +60 and -70 years and one-third of the population +70 to -80 can be expected to be in reasonably good physical and mental health and capable of leading an active life. The above mentioned statistics and also as per UN directive, India can be considered in aging country category. The objective of this paper is to know which factors contribute to elderly driver, cyclist and pedestrian unsafe characteristics as a road user. The decrease in sensory, cognitive and physical characteristics of elderly makes them vulnerable as elderly driver, cyclist and pedestrian than other age group (-60).

In this study, a total of 200 elderly drivers, 100 cyclist and 55 pedestrian samples were interviewed using structured questionnaire. Samples were weighted to remove bias using Delphi method according to gender and age. The analysis reveals the following statistically significant effect on elderly: (i) 60+ drivers’ faces decrease in physical strength such as steering, braking, looking aside/backside. (ii) walking speed is (30-40%) less than standard intersection crossing design speed (iii) Driver, cyclist and pedestrian experience vision and glare related problem and also decreased hear loss become worse with noise (iv) cognitive impairment related to perception- reaction time increased by 20 to 30% and also Intersection sign/marking becomes very significant due to decrease of cognitive function (v) Gap finding is significant in elderly and finally (vi) intersection geometry. Self-reported data was analysed based on 10 point scale (1 indicates very serious problem and 10 not a problem). The emerging new set of road user's characteristics may warrant addressing issue related to elderly driver, cyclist and pedestrian. Therefore, emerging vulnerable category of road users in form of elderly driver, cyclist and pedestrian characteristics require immediate consideration in intersection planning and design for efficient operations and safe mobility.

Keywords

Elderly Driver
Cyclist
Pedestrian
Intersection
Physiological and psychological characteristics.

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Selection and peer-review under responsibility of International Scientific Committee.