Human age and vehicle speeds affect on vehicle ingress motion pattern

The vehicle ingress and egress are important issues for the automotive industry, both for minimizing assembly work load and for maximizing end-users’ comfort. Digital human modeling tools are used for evaluating and visualizing these issues. The assembler and end-user are more or less performing the very same entering task if the vehicles have identical geometrical prerequisites. The major difference is the vehicle speed; an assembler is entering a vehicle slightly moving forward on the assembly line with a speed of 5 meter/minute whereas the end user’s vehicle is standing still. The human motion when entering a car is a complex biomechanical process, which affects many different body parts. Car ingress techniques, such as flopper, swiveler, and glider vary among humans; for which humans’ agility may be one affecting factor. Agility is affected by joint diseases, which is more frequent among older people. There are several studies regarding ingress motion patterns[1,2], but studies on the differences in car ingress motion between car assemblers and end-users, or older and younger people are rare. Thus the purpose of the present study was to compare the ingress motion between younger versus older persons, and assemblers versus end-users