Elderly Pedestrians’ Visual Timing Strategies in a Simulated Street-crossing Situation

The purpose of the present experiment was to investigate the effect of age and of the approaching vehicle’s speed on crossing behavior in an interactive street crossing simulation. Seventy-eight subjects aged from 20-30, 60-70 and 7080, took part in the experiment. Half of them were female and half were male. The participants were asked to cross between two approaching cars if they judged crossing possible. Vehicle speed (40 and 60 km/h) and time gap between cars (from 1 to 7s) were varied. The results show that the accepted time gap increased with age, but that the adopted safety margins, as well as the rates of unsafe crossings and missed opportunities were globally comparable for all groups of participants. However, the speed of the approaching vehicles was identified as an important risk factor for elderly pedestrians. Unlike younger pedestrians, seniors exhibited more risky behaviors at higher speeds. Results are discussed in relation to the visual information used, and with respect to the validity of judgment and crossing tasks in the study of pedestrian behavior.