Development of New Transfer System for Older People

日本的老年人口比例目前约为15%，到2015年将达到25%。其增长率为世界最高。因此，我们必须建设一个老年人生活质量保持高水平的国家。在这一点上，老年人的流动性是一个重要的问题。如果老年司机的要求在他们的生活方式中没有得到考虑，他们不会放弃开车。我们一直在研究老年人的流动性，并通过对老年人的生活方式、身体特征和驾驶能力的细致研究，为他们开发一种新型的社区车辆。该车为小型低速（30 km/h）电动汽车，具有易乘坐、易驾驶的特点。我们把这辆车命名为“银车”。银车只能用手臂操作，不能用脚。速度控制即加速和停止由左臂操作，转向控制由右臂操作。宽敞的入口空间使老年人易于乘坐和下车。适当的座椅高度位置可以使老年人减轻腰部的负荷。我们在高野町进行了银车的评价实验。试验的目的是进行性能评价和公路试运行。我们得到了一些优势如下银车是容易乘坐。很容易环顾四周银车很容易驾驶很快。银车在老年人中很受欢迎，银车可以很容易地在高野町行驶，要在公共道路上行驶银车，必须限制其他交通的速度，需要进行从汽车到银车的政治实验。

Population rate of older people in Japan is now about 15% and it will get to be more 25% in 2015. Its growing rate is the highest in the world. So we must construct a country where QOL of older maintain high level. In this point, mobility of older people is important problem. If older drivers request is not considered in the in their lifestyle, they will not give up driving a car. We have been studying the mobility of older people, and develop a new type of community vehicle for them through minute research on life style, physical characteristics and driving ability of older people. The vehicle is a small size low speed (30km/h) EV which has characteristics of easy riding and easy driving. We name this uehicle "Silver Vehicle". Silver Vehicle can be operated by only the arms, not by the feets. Speed control that is acceleration and stop is operated by a left arm, and steering control is operated by a right arm. A big entrance space makes older easy people easy to ride on and get off. Appropriate height of seat position makes older people reduce the load of the waist. We did experiments for the evaluation of Silver Vehicle at Takanosu town. The purpose of experiments is the performance evaluation and test run on public road. We got some advantages as follows Silver Vehicle is easy to ride. It is easy to look around Silver Vehicle is easy to drive soon. The silver vehicle is popular among older people, silver vehicle can run at Takanosu town easily, to run the silver vehicle on public road, it is necessary to limit the speed of other traffic, political experiment of promotion of changing from car to silver vehicle will be needed.