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

本研究旨在对高速公路分流路段指路标志的设计提出改进建议，以方便老年驾驶员的识别和判断。实验是在VERS-III（道路空间虚拟评价系统第三版）上进行的。90多名老年司机和30多名年轻司机驾驶模拟器通过虚拟形成的分叉路段，有几个不同的引导标志选择。几个数据，如驾驶速度，加速器的使用，心跳率，凝视点，通过模拟器收集并记录了老年驾驶员在高速公路分岔路段上的驾驶行为、驾驶行为、驾驶行为等信息，并根据这些信息建立了一系列指标，用于评价不同的导向标志选择方案，以及研究老年驾驶员在高速公路分岔路段上的驾驶行为。年长司机在阅读指示牌时，车速下降的幅度较年轻司机为大。结果发现，75岁以上的驾驶者的行车速度一直较低; 2）标志牌上的字体大小对驾驶者阅读标志牌的能力有很大影响; 3）标志牌上的信息量应控制在一个较小的范围内; 4）驾驶者喜欢使用简单的颜色，而不喜欢使用多种颜色。并提出了一些建议，以改善公路分流标志的设计，使其成为方便老年驾驶者的标志。

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.