A Research on the Improvement of Guide Sign Design Standards for Elderly Drivers by Virtual Reality Technology

本研究旨在为高速公路分流路段公路导向标志设计的改进提供有益的建议，以便于老年公路驾驶员的识别和判断。实验在VERS-III(道路空间虚拟评价系统III版)上进行。90多名老年司机和30多名年轻司机驾驶着驾驶模拟器穿过虚拟形成的分叉路段，上面有几个不同的指引标志。通过模拟器采集和记录行车速度、油门使用率、心率、凝视点等数据，并根据这些数据建立和计算几个指标来评估各种引导标志方案，并了解老年司机在高速公路分叉路段的行为。这些指标的分析和几个问卷调查和访谈研究得出的结果是：1)老年司机在阅读路牌时的运行速度比年轻司机下降得更多。研究发现，75岁以上老年司机的行驶速度一直相当低。2)招牌上的字母大小对老年司机对招牌的可读性有很大影响。3)招牌上的信息量应该限制在很少的量。4)老年司机更喜欢在招牌上使用简单的颜色而不是使用各种颜色。基于以上调查结果，提出了几点建议，以改进分流高速公路招牌的设计，使其更适合老年司机。

This research aimed to give useful suggestions on improvement of the design of highway guide sign at diverging section of expressways for the easier recognition and judgment by elderly highway drivers. The experiments were undertaken on VERS-III (Virtual Evaluation system for Road Space Version III). Over 90 elderly drivers and 30 young drivers droved the driving simulator through the virtually formed diverging road section with several different guide sign alternatives. Several data such as driving speed, accelerator usage, heart beat rate, gazing points, and so on were collected and recorded through the simulator.A few indices were set up and computed from these data to evaluate each guide sign alternative and to find elderly drivers' behavior at diverging section of highways.The fallowings are findings obtained from the analyses of these indices and a few questionnaires and interview study.1) Running speed of elderly drivers dropped more than that of young drivers while they read the signboards. It was noticed that the running speed of elderly drivers over 75 years old stay always considerably low.2) The size of letters on signboards gave strong effect to the readability of signboards by elderly divers.3) The amount of information given in a signboard should be limited to a small amount.4) Elderly drivers prefer simple coloring on signboards to using variety of color.Based on the findings written above, a few suggestions were made to improve the diverging highway signboards design and to make them elderly-driver-friendly ones.