PURPOSES :With the increasing number of older drivers in an aging society, there is a growing need for research and planning on traffic safety for the older drivers using an improved road geometry design. This study also proposed a modified urban road interchange design, which aims to keep the older drivers away from accident-prone and high-traffic areas of the city.METHODS:In this study, we examined accident data records of older drivers to identify accident-prone zones and intersections; we studied the road geometry at these zones and analyzed if it was an underlying cause for higher number of accidents. Based on the research and subsequent analysis, we suggested plans for improvement of road geometry design at these intersections.RESULTS:By studying historic data and analyzing factors that affect the likelihood of accidents of vehicles driven by older drivers and after studying suitable traffic accident prediction models, we identified the major variables that need to be modified at accident-prone intersections, such as the width of a left turn lane at an intersection and the radius of the right turn lane at a street corner. The results have a significance probability of less than 0.001 and a 95% confidence level. To improve safety at the identified intersection, this study suggests the installation of a left-turn-lane-shaped Positive Offset and a right-turn-lane-shaped Slip Lane concept and an adjustment of intervals between intersections.

This paper carried out design in order to reduce the process of asymmetric pinch yoke, one of the important parts which transfer power to wheels through gearing box in automobile steering system. The purpose of the study is to reduce prime costs and strengthen competitiveness by designing the total 8 processes including the up-setting and forging process of the No. 1 as the forging process the current method of production. The process with die stress analysis by using the finite element method have been carried out through new optimal die design. As this study result, it is expected that die life can be secured as excellent material flow and caused by forming load. A prototype has been produced by basis of the analysis result and the reduction of the process was successful. As the unit price is lower than that of the current process, the competitiveness can be expected.

In this paper, we discuss a service to give alarm in the case of emergency for the old and the weak by human behavior recognition in Intelligent Space. Our Intelligent Space consists of mobile robots, sensors and agents. Agent analyzes data acquired from networked devices and determines tasks of robot and space to provide a service for humans. In our emergency alarm service, human behavior recognition service module analyzes accelerometer data obtained from body-attached human behavior sensing platform, and classifies into four basic human behavior such as "walking", "running", "sitting" and "falling-down". For the old and the weak, "falling-down" behavior may bring about dangerous situations. On such an occasion, emergency alarm service is executed automatically and a selected mobile robot approaches fallen person quickly and then send images of the person to guardians. In this paper, we set up a scenario to verify the emergency alarm service in Intelligent Space, and show feasibility of the service from our simulation experiments.