Design Method of Cockpit Module in Consideration of Switch Type, Location of Switch and Display Information for Older Drivers

In this paper, the effects of switch type, location of switch, and display information on the primary driving task and the secondary switch operation were investigated. The switch type included an integrated and a non-integrated switch. These switches were located on the front left, on the left side, or around a steering wheel. We prepared three displays with different display information (2.0, 4.1, and 5.9 bit). The tracking error, the mean operation time, the percentage of correct answer, NASA-TLX mental workload, and the subjective evaluation of usability were measured in order to analyze how these measures were affected by experimental factors above. The results suggested that young adults are better than older adults at both abilities on processing displayed information and operating switches. The integrated switch was found to affect driving performance than the non-integrated switch, and had little influence on switch operation. In addition, it was clarified that the switch located around a steering wheel had little influence on driving performance. Low display information was also found not to affect the performance.