Principal Component Analysis on Elderly Driver’s Safety Confirmation Behaviors

Abstract

Drivers' head movements are informative measures for evaluating the safety of elderly drivers. However, those measures are too technical for general elderly drivers to understand the meaning and how to improve them. This paper applied a principal component analysis (PCA) on elderly drivers' head movement measures driving a simulator, resulting in integrated head movement measures as principal axes that are easily interpretable: steadiness, quickness, and timeliness. Chart diagrams of PCA scores show an individual as well as group elderly drivers' characteristics. Based on the PCA scores, we discuss possible feedbacks for the elderly drivers.