Elderly and Disabled Travelers: Intelligent Transport Systems Designed for the 3rd Millennium

Abstract

The TELematic Standards and Coordination of Advanced Transport Telematics systems in relation to elderly and disabled travelers (TELSCAN) project in the Transport Sector of the Telematics Applications Programme of the European Union has developed a Handbook of Design Guidelines (Nicolle & Burnett, 1999) to support designers of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) to include the needs of people who are elderly or disabled. This article describes the methods of the Handbook's development, including an overview of the methodology for capturing the requirements of elderly and disabled travelers, a survey of existing guidelines, and empirical results and lessons learned from simulator testing. The authors conclude that although general guidelines are necessary, the most specific and useful guidelines emerge only when carefully chosen research questions can be investigated. The development of such guidelines should help us come closer to achieving usability of ITS not only for elderly and disabled people, but for everybody as we enter the 3rd millennium.