Functional declines as predictors of risky street-crossing decisions in older pedestrians

Review of safety and mobility issues among older pedestrians

“…More incorrect decisions have also been observed on a full-scale street-crossing simulator with inhibition declines (Dommes and Cavallo, 2011). Likewise, the age-related decline of the ability to switch lines of reasoning and actions in order to perceive, process, and respond to situations in a flexible way (i.e., shifting skills) have been shown to be a significant predictor of street-crossing collisions (Dommes et al, 2013): in a complex, two-way street environment, older pedestrians with poor shifting skills seem to have difficulty switching their attention between traffic approaching from two different directions, and selecting the most relevant information sources.…”

“…A slower processing speed may also partly explain poorer navigation performance with aging (Kliegel et al, 2007;Salthouse and Siedlecki, 2007). Finally, because processing speed is necessary for making timely, correct decisions, it could also explain the longer start-up times of older pedestrians, as well as the link observed between the safeness of street-crossing decisions made in simulator experiments and scores on the UFOV ® test (Dommes and Cavallo, 2011;Dommes et al, 2013Dommes et al, , 2015. The UFOV ® test is a computer-based test of rapid visual-scene perception that measures the useful field of view (i.e., the area from which one can extract visual information at a brief glance without head or eye movements) and therefore involves processing speed and visual attention (Ball and Owsley, 1993).…”

“…Visual acuity loss has also been shown to cause problems in discriminating vehicles from the rest of the road environment (Oxley et al, 1995), and declines in contrast sensitivity are thought to hinder the perception of fixed or moving objects such as sidewalks or oncoming vehicles (Oxley et al, 1995). The decline of visual motion sensitivity in older adults (e.g., Sekuler et al, 1980;Snowden and Kavanagh, 2006) has been proposed to directly account for the use of distance-based heuristics and the ensuing increase in unsafe crossing decisions when vehicles moving at a high speed are approaching a pedestrian crossing the street on a full-scale simulator (Dommes et al, 2013;Dommes and Cavallo, 2011;Lobjois and Cavallo, 2007): the slow angular velocity of the vehicles is difficult to perceive and is even sometimes below the perceptual threshold, causing vehicle speed information to be neglected.…”

Choice Behavior of the Elderly Regarding Street-Crossing Facility

“…The result indicated that above 50% of the subjects older than 70 years could not cross streets in time. Dommes et al [3] concluded that slow decision-making, decreased walking speed, and the challenges in selecting safe gaps and adopting sufficient safety margins cause the elderly to encounter higher hazards when they cross streets. These studies indicate that the risk involved in street-crossings by the elderly is considerable.…”

Pedestrian Group-Crossing Behavior Modeling and Simulation Based on Multidimensional Dirty Faces Game

“…Hence, the crossing behavior at unsignalized crosswalks is not as straightforward as it seems. It is of utmost importance to investigate the behavior of pedestrians and vehicles [1,[6][7][8][9][10] to inform policy-makers, pedestrians, and motorists better. Many microscopic simulation models, such as the social force model [11], cellular automaton model [12], and lattice gas model [13], have been used to investigate mixed traffic flows due to their simple, easy-to-calculate, and flexible characteristics.…”