1. Road Infrastructure Design for Older Road Users
Dr Lucy Rackliff, Aston University

2. Outline What factors make older road users special?
What helps to keep them safe?
What prevents them from staying mobile?
How should infrastructure be designed?

3. Background Ageing population, expecting increased mobility.
Already over-represented in casualty statistics.
Particularly at risk –
In urban areas
At complex junctions
As pedestrians

4. Why? Physiological changes Other factors? Bone density Muscle strength
Eye sight deteriorations
Reaction times
Information processing
Walk speed
Other factors?
Drugs (and interactions)

5. Why infrastructure changes?
Easier & cheaper.
Could benefit a wider group of road users.
More acceptable than restricting driving.
Do not have to be the only solution.
Option
Potential percentage saving
Road user and road usage
33%
Vehicle safety measures
25%
Low cost road environment remedies
20% .
Sabey and Taylor, 1980

6. What is problematic?

10. What about pedestrians?

13. How can we make things safer?
Grade separation.
Dedicated infrastructure (crossings)
Speed limits.
Parking.

20. Is there a way of redressing the balance?

21. Safety
Mobility
Grade separation.
Dedicated crossings.
Roundabouts.
Self-explaining roads.
“Voids” and unattractive spaces.
Increase walk distances
Make road crossing problematic.
Increase vehicle speeds.

22. Why promote mobility? Reduces health problems in older people.
Increases “desirable” attributes such as community cohesion, viability of local businesses, activity and independence for younger people.
Encourages the use of more sustainable modes.

23. But……
May increase fatalities, in the same way as cycling fatalities have now become a major cause for concern in London.
Without detailed, disaggregate data on where people walk and cycle, how long it takes them, how far they go, it is impossible to say whether risk increases or decreases – only whether accidents/casualties go up or down.

24. What can we do?

25. Infrastructure design for older road users
Protects them from risk –
Parked cars
Fewer lanes
Lower speed limits
Avoids need to observe signals AND yield
Provides a median
Limits the amount of information to be observed/acted on
Allows as long as possible for information to be processed
Avoids narrow angles of intersection
Ensures instructions are not obscured or degraded

26. Design for older users does not -
Prevent them from making journeys, whether as a pedestrian or driver.

27. In conclusion
Finding the right compromise between the needs of competing users in urban areas is not easy.
Finding the right balance between safety and mobility is not easy.
Protecting road users often requires a package of measures – appropriate infrastructure design is one element of that.
Older road users and their specific needs should be a policy priority.

28. Thank you.