Experimental study on the influence of the size of personal mobility vehicle on pedestrians

Abstract

For the reduction of environmental load, the support of aged society and the right to mobility, new individual mobility methods are expected. As a method, Personal Mobility Vehicles (PMVs) are investigated and developed these days. Compact PMVs have enough possibility to be used in pedestrian areas for its convenience. It is important to insure safety and comfort to the pedestrians when they share the spaces with PMV users. In this paper, in order to evaluate the influence of PMV on pedestrians, we measured the personal space of the pedestrian who walked against the PMV user. From the experimental results, it was shown that the width of the PMV and height of the step of the PMV significantly affected the personal space of pedestrians. Especially when the width and the height becomes larger, it was found that the front personal space of the pedestrians expanded. © 2012 The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers.