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How do elderly pedestrians perceive hazards in the street? - An initial investigation towards development of a pedestrian simulation that incorporates reaction of various pedestrians to environments

Fujiyama, T; Childs, C; Boampong, D; Tyler, N; (2007) How do elderly pedestrians perceive hazards in the street? - An initial investigation towards development of a pedestrian simulation that incorporates reaction of various pedestrians to environments. : Montreal, Canada. Green open access

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Abstract

In order to evaluate the accessibility of street and transport environments, such as railway stations, we are now developing a pedestrian simulation that incorporates elderly and disable pedestrians and their interaction with various environments including hazards on the street. For this development, it is necessary to understand how elderly and disabled pedestrians perceive hazards in the street and transport environments. Many elderly people suffer from some visual impairment. A study in the UK suggested 12% of people aged 65 or over have binocular acuity of 6/18 or less (Van der Pols et al, 2000). It should be noted that a quarter of the UK population will be aged 65 or over by 2031 (The Government Actuary's Department, 2004). Because of age-related changes of visual perception organs, elderly people suffer not only visual acuity problems but also other forms of visual disabilities, such as visual field loss and less contrast sensitivity. Lighting is considered to be an effective solution to let elderly and disable pedestrians perceive possible hazards in the street. Interestingly, British Standards for residential street lighting have not considered lighting needs of elderly pedestrians or pedestrians with visual disabilities (e.g. Fujiyama et al, 2005). In order to design street lighting that incorporates elderly and visually disabled pedestrians, it would be useful to understand how lighting improves the perception of hazards by elderly and disable pedestrians. The aim of this paper is to understand how elderly pedestrians perceive different hazards and to address issues to be investigated in future research. This paper focuses on fixation patterns of elderly pedestrians on different hazards in the street under different lighting conditions. Analysing fixation patterns helps us understand how pedestrians perceive environments or hazards (Fujiyama, 2006). This paper presents the initial results of our analysis of the eye tracker data of an ordinary elderly participant.

Type: Working / discussion paper
Title: How do elderly pedestrians perceive hazards in the street? - An initial investigation towards development of a pedestrian simulation that incorporates reaction of various pedestrians to environments
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Additional information: Imported via OAI, 7:29:01 8th Feb 2008
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Civil, Environ and Geomatic Eng
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/5030
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