Compensating age related physical and cognitive impariments of older drivers by technological measures and training

In manycountries in Europe, America and Asia, the proportion of older persons in the population is rapidly increasing. Safe traffi c participation is very important for the independent functioning and quality of life of older persons and they are increasingly dependent on private cars. In principle, driving a car is very userfriendly for older persons because it allows transport from door to door in a relatively protected cocoon. However, with increasing age the body becomes more vulnerable and the prevalence of imparied sensory, motor and cognitive functions caused by agingrelated neurological and ocular diseases, does increase, reducing fi tness to drive. To a certain degree, technological measures in the traffi c system can compensate these impairments. Adaptations of the infrastructure as proposed in "sustainable safe", a European policy for making the traffi c infrastructure forgiving with regard to human error and frailty, are generally favorable for older drivers because they increase predictability of the road environment, separate opposing traffi c streams and reduce speed differences. Care has to be taken, however, that infrastructual characteristics intended to reduce speed in general, do not make the driving task so diffi cult for impaired older drivers that they drive too slow or otherwise hinder the fl ow of traffi c. Advanced invehicle driver assistance systems (ADAS) may suffer less from this problem because they can be adjusted to the individual needs and preferences. Some frequently occuring older driver impairments (MCI, AD, PD) will be discussed in the light of developments in Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and ADAS, and it will be considered what existing and future to be further developed systems appear to be important for sustainable sage mobility in impaired older drivers. It is proposed that ITS and ADAS interventions should be designed and applied in such a way that potential mobility and safety effects are not regulated away by social and behavioral adaptation. This issue is currently the subject of research going on in the EU funded Marie Curie Initial Training Network "Adaption", also with a special emphasis on older drivers. One expectation is that speed regulation and warning systems which young drivers consider as a nuisance, are viewed as helpful and pleasant by older drivers and that the positive safety and mobility effects will not be regulated away by undesired behavioral changes. Even with optimally (older) userfriendly infrastructure and incar technology, the driver remains an essential element in the loop and opportunities must be provided to allow older drivers to compare their functioning with what is required ("calibration") and to improve their functioning by driver education and training in the use of new technology. Advanced driving simulators can play an important role there as will be illustrated by ongoing research in the "Adaptation" network and on visual strategy training in drivers with visual impairments. Finally, consequences of the new technological development for the assessment of fi tness to drive will be briefl y discussed.