A cooPerAtive AssistAnce system between vehicles for elderly drivers

The rapid increase in the elderly population has caused serial issues in Japan. Especially, elderly people (over 65 years old) account for more road fatalities than any other age group (Fig.1). Figure 2 shows the changes in the number of drivers who have a drivers’ license. This figure shows the number of elderly drivers is increasing and surpassed that of young divers1. One of the issues is automobile traffic accidents caused by elderly drivers. The number of fatal accidents, the main cause of which is due to the elderly drivers, has increased nearly three times in the past 17 years, while the total number of fatal accidents has decreased by nearly 30 % during the same period1. Automobiles are the optimal transportation means for the elderly, because they can provide door-to-door transportation. It is the reason why the elderly driver assistance will be necessary. An ordinary driver assistance system usually involves a single vehicle, and sometimes there are bounds on the assistance. An example that shows the existence of the bounds is assistance at a blind intersection. Another example is the assistance on lane changing, and the system can tell the timing of the lane changing, but if the driver is hesitating and cannot make the decision to perform a lane change, the driver will have to wait for a gap A cooPerAtive AssistAnce system between vehicles for elderly drivers Naohisa HASHIMOTO Researcher Intelligent System Research Division National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology Ibaraki, Japan Shin KATO Senior Research Scientist Intelligent System Research Division National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology Ibaraki, Japan Sadayuki TSUGAWA Professor Meijo University Aichi, Japan