Mobility for elderly people: market supply developments

The paper describes parts of a survey on the market supply expectations in the field of mobility products for elderly over the next 10 years. It focuses on the expected developments with respect to: travel information for private and public transport ; driver support systems for private transport by car ; developments in vehicle design. It is concluded that transport related industry is becoming aware of the market potential of the elderly consumer. Although most systems for travel information are technology driven, more and more attention is given to the usability by elderly. The increasing information flow gives ground to the development of new services to assist elderly in information handling. With respect to private monitoring the emphasis is currently on the comfort of the driver. Driver assistance systems are under development but yet not suitable to assist elderly with reduced functionality. Much effort is put in the development of integrated solutions to keep the workload for the driver at an acceptable level. Hardly no attention is given to the development of possibilities to adjust the characteristics of the information/assistance systems to the (physical) abilities of the user/driver. It is however envisaged to be on the agenda in the next 10 years.