Self-driving cars and the mobility gap
Autonomous cars are possible boon for older adults
Single, childless and 68, Steven Gold has begun to think about future mobility and independence.
Although in good health, he can foresee a time when he won’t be a confident driver, if he can drive at all. While he hopes to continue to live in his suburban Detroit home, he wonders how he will be able to get to places such as his doctor’s office and the supermarket if his driving becomes impaired.
For Gold and other older adults, self-driving cars might be a solution.
“The aging of the population converging with autonomous vehicles might close the coming mobility gap for an aging society,” said Joseph Coughlin, director of the Massachusetts Institute for Technology AgeLab in Cambridge.
He said that 70 per cent of people older than 50 live in the suburbs, a figure he expects to remain steady despite a recent rise in moves to urban centres. Further, 92 per cent of older people want to age in place, he said.
Coughlin said on-demand services such as Uber and Lyft were viable alternatives to autonomous cars, but are not available in many areas where older adults live. Although these companies offer limited app-free services, some older people are wary of riding with strangers and being able to identify the right vehicle. Gold said such services were too expensive for regular use.
In many cases, as with Gold, there are no children around to provide transportation. A recent study led by Dr. Maria Torroella Carney of Northwell Health in Great Neck, N.Y., found that 22 per cent of baby boomers are now or at risk of becoming elder orphans, with limited access to transportation.
“If I were still a good driver in a few years, I’d consider a semiautonomous car,” said Gold, who lives in Oak Park, Mich., and drives a 2015 Honda Fit. “And if I were in a situation where driving was too physically difficult, then I’d consider a fully autonomous car.”
Along with other firms, automakers including Audi, General Motors, Ford Motor, Nissan, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and BMW are all in the race to reduce or eliminate the amount of time a person in a vehicle is actually driving.
There are several levels of autonomy, going in stages from driver assistance to full automation. For example, by 2020 Honda is aiming to bring to market a vehicle with a high level of automated capability in highway situations. By year’s end, Volvo plans to put highly automated XC90 vehicles in the hands of real-world drivers in Sweden as part of its Volvo Drive Me program.
Within the next four years, BMW hopes to have cars on the street with midlevel automation. BMW and other companies are also working on driverless prototypes that have no steering wheel, brake or gas pedal.
Still, a world in which fully automated cars are common remains many years away. “It’s all going to be a slow transition,” said Nicole Carriere, director of public relations for Edmunds.com. “There will be a fundamental shift, but it won’t be overnight.”
The spectrum of vehicles eventually coming to market will allow older drivers to consider the types that suit them best. For example, some auto manufacturers are developing semi-autonomous systems that give drivers seconds to prepare to re-engage to avoid collision, and will pull to the side of the road if re-engagement is not detected.
Keep in mind that driving abilities vary among older adults, said Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx. “It’s not chronological age that’s important, it’s biological,” he said.
One fear is ending up at the wrong destination, a worry that should not be paramount, said Oliver Rumpf-Steppat, head of BMW’s U.S. product requirements engineering division. Although autonomous-car production is still in the test phase, he said vehicles would most likely rely on voice-recognition systems. “You can say: ‘Take me to the eye doctor or grocery store.’ It will come back and ask which one,” he said. “Most of the time, we get it right.”