Investigation of Elderly Driver Safety and Comfort: In-Vehicle Intersection "Gap Acceptance Advisor" and Identifying Older Driver Needs

This reports provides a multi-disciplinary systems-oriented approach to develop a pilot study on the Toyota GapAdvise, a decision support system that serves as an intersection gap advisor. In addition, the study identifies driving task challenges, and based on interpretations from focus groups and observations, countermeasures for the elderly driving population and design guidelines are recommended. The study was conducted through four tasks. In the first task, crash database and demographic data were used to rank causal factors. Task 2 involved focus groups and observations of elderly drivers, leading to an understanding of the problems faced by elderly drivers in areas such as ingress/egress and seating/control adjustments. Task 3 involved in-vehicle experiments to characterize driver behaviors at intersections, while Task 4 focused on providing design recommendations, including engineering constraints and design principles.