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Citation
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Beirens BJH, Van Dyck D, Deforche B, Van de Weghe N, Boussauw K, Mertens L. J. Transp. Health 2022; 25(Suppl): e101430. |
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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Despite positive effects of physical activity on physical and mental health, and healthy aging in general, many older adults remain physically inactive. Promoting active transport may offer an ecologically sustainable solution to this problem. In order to encourage older adults to engage in active transport, the physical environment needs to be optimized. It is however difficult to examine the effect of actual changes in the environment on active transport because such interventions are costly and time consuming. Using virtual reality environments can be an easier and more cost-effective solution, and an important first step before actual environmental changes take place. Therefore, this study aims to identify which environmental factors regarding safety and invitingness are important for older adults while cycling in a 3D virtual reality.
Methods: Fifty-two older adults (age 63,8 ± 5,8 years, 28 females) participated in this study. Participants cycled through a virtual environment (urban street in Ghent, Belgium) on a virtual reality setup, consisting of a bike on stationary rollers and a Vive virtual reality system (VR-headset, 2 base stations for tracking, and 2 trackers (one on a pedal for speed and one on the handlebars for steering)). Qualitative data was collected by means of the "think-aloud" method. Participants were asked to say out loud what they were thinking and why they liked or did not like to cycle trough the virtual environment. This was recorded with a voice-recorder and will be analyzed in NVIVO.
Results: Preliminary results suggest that the majority of the participants like cycling in a calm environment. Furthermore, clear signage and markings were favored to create a clear traffic situation. A few participants expressed concerns about cars passing by. More specifically, they mentioned that when streets are too narrow (e.g., traffic islands), it is dangerous when cars want to pass. In contrast, others suggest this is safer because cars are not able to pass or have to slow down. Most participants also said they felt unsafe because of sudden actions in the environment, like crossing pedestrians, cars coming from side streets, and especially parked cars that could open their doors. A separate bike lane was suggested as a solution by some of the interviewees.
Conclusions: This study demonstrates the benefit of using virtual reality to study physical environments which allows to include different users' opinions regarding safety and invitingness to further stimulate active transport.
Language: en |