Citation

Handa N, Zulfadhli M, Matsui Y, Oikawa S, Mitobe K. J. Jpn. Counc. Traffic Sci. 2017; 16(2): 19-28.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, The Japanese Council of Traffic Science)

DOI

10.24597/jcts.16.2_19

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

According to the 2015 Traffic Casualties by Conditions Report, deaths due to accidents during walking is the highest （37.3％）, followed by deaths due to accidents during driving （32.1％）, and deaths due to accidents during cycling （13.9％）. In addition, elderly people make up the highest percentage of deaths within bicycle group with 65.0％ and has the highest case fatality rate. From these, we can see that the higher the age the more one is susceptible to fatal accidents. Hence, prevention of accidents in elderly people is important. In this study, a Bicycling Simulator for evaluating the induction factor of traffic accidents was developed. A virtual traffic environment was developed using VR technology. Through simulation of road crossing, we were able to study the induction factor of traffic accident of road crossing while riding a bicycle. We measured the actions in the process of cycling down a straight road until end of road crossing of 18 elderly and 15 young participants. Our measurements showed that 0 case of young participants met with accidents and 30 cases of elderly participants met with accidents on Near Lane （17％）. From this result, we categorized participants that met with accidents 2 or more times at Near Lane as "High Accident Risk Group" and participants that met with accidents 1 or less time at Near Lane as "Low Accident Risk Group" and investigated the difference in movements between them. In our paper, we analyzed the movement of bicycle and movement of head of participants while cycling in VR space and calculated the time needed for final backward confirmation before entering the road and the time spent from final backward confirmation until entering the road. Moreover, we also calculated the distance between the bicycle and the closest vehicle that closes in from the rear of the bicycle during road crossing. As a result, we found out that the long time spent on the road during road crossing, short final backward confirmation period before entering road and long final backward confirmation period until entering road are reasons for the increase in accident risk.

Language: ja

Keywords

Bicycle Simulator; Elder; Motion Capture; Traffic Accident; Virtual Reality; VR; モーションキャプチャ; 交通事故; 自転車運転シミュレータ; 高齢者