The safety of elderly road users has become an important focus of the behavioural scientific research at the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) in Germany. Within the scope of diverse research projects the performance potentials, deficits, health data, and compensatory strategies of elderly road users have been investigated and interventions to improve their driving ability have been shown. Furthermore, the BASt hosted the conference 'Ageing and Safe Mobility' in November 2014 at which current findings from empirical studies on the behaviour of elderly road users, road infrastructure, and automotive engineering were discussed. Insights gained at this conference are taken up in the report at hand and are presented together with findings from relevant national and international publications. This overview will help to adequately meet new challenges of road safety which have arisen due to the increasing numbers of elderly persons and their mobility needs. The overview comprehensively describes research on mobility needs, agerelated peformance changes, and compensatory strategies of elderly drivers. Furthermore, the use of tests in predicting driving ability and driving license regulations in different European countries are outlined. Another focus of the report lies on the derivation of measures to improve road safety for the elderly, whereby this report mainly focuses on measures to influence the behaviour of traffic participants. Even though this report mainly considers findings on elderly persons as drivers, knowledge on and measures for the elderly as pedestrians and cyclists are also presented. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting