Development of the Tool Supporting Road Crossing Orientation of the Visually Impaired Based on Walking Experiment

Abstract

For supporting road crossing of the visually impaired, many facilities such as a tactile walking surface indicator, an audible signal and a tactile guiding line on a crosswalk have been introduced in various areas in Japan. Reliability of these facilities or curbs at a boundary between a sidewalk and a carriageway fluctuates greatly with location of a crosswalk. This situation leads to enhance a psychological burden in crossing rather than help. To develop a method to promote more accurate road crossing orientation of the visually impaired, the authors suggested the direction taking blocks mounted around tactile walking surface indicators at an entrance of a crosswalk and conducted the evaluation experiment in the completely blind persons. By analysis based on subjective evaluation by the experiment participants and observation of their walking and direction taking, the best specifications and laying methods of blocks that maximize the effectiveness of support had been extracted.