Funding programme:
Objective ICT-2007.7.1: ICT and Ageing

Project description:
The European society is ageing, the number of elderly people aged 65-79 will increase significantly after 2010 and until around 2030 (+ 37.4%). With life expectancy increasing all the time, our societies are witnessing the presence of an ever-rising number of very elderly persons (80+): +17.1% between 2005 and 2010, +57.1% between 2010 and 2030. (source: Eurostat). This demographic change has effects on different aspects concerning the everyday life of elderly people and leads in to a new definition of services and assistance which includes among others the mobility aspect. Mobility is a key to life quality and ensures an active life with access to social facilities and helps to maintain independency of aged persons. In our approach we will focus on the special needs of older drivers as one specialised aspect of mobility. The project idea is based on the results of several research studies on European level, which underline the need for the development of new products and services responding to the demands of aged drivers. Within this project the key element will be to really focus on the needs of elderly people in order to find support mechanisms to improve their ability to drive a car and hereby improve the life quality of aged persons in making them more independent and mobile. In order to create competitive advantage, automotive industry needs to fit more realistically to the user needs. In this specific case we need a holistic approach. In fact, a multi-disciplinary approach combining perspectives from various sources and various research domains is used to gather together as many issues as possible that affect the elderly driver. A systemic methodology will support mastering the complexity and interrelations in the field and lead to the establishment of sustainable research results. To make this possible it is necessary to take a new direction to collect information and to generate requirements. A multi-disciplinary approach combining the perspectives from various sources will be used to combine a maximum of aspects that affect the elderly driver. The approach will combine the points of view of Security, Construction, Design, Assurance, Health, Care, Consumer Needs, Psychology, Ergonomics, Associations etc. In order to support community building and to get representative results, regular workshops with an extended group of people will be organised. In addition the process will at any state consider the needs of the end user, the old person and will be constantly adapted. However these needs might differ depending on the physical age, actual health conditions or psychological aspects of the aged person which makes it necessary to offer a wide range of possible applications but to be concrete at the same time. The community building process and the dissemination of the results will be supported by the use of a webportal, which functionalities will be defined by the consortium. Transportation is a key to life quality and independency and needs to be respected and improved for every (European) citizen.

Description of work:
We are searching for a partner which can bring in competencies in the field of eInclusion. His focus should be on technology development or application in assitive living. His task will be to assure usability of the obtained project results as well as advice on technological developments and possible impacts of the projects. He should also have profound knowledge about market developments in the field of assitive living and represent this knowledge in the project consortium. We are aware of the fact that Canadian research institutes are on a much more advanced level in this field and are convinced that a Canadian partner could bring added value to the consortium.