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

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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.