| Keywords |
Elderly people; Subway stations; Speech Announcement; Survey |
| Abstract |
This study aims to investigate the current status and user perception of speech announcements in subway stations to improve mobility convenience for elderly people, whose importance is increasing with the entry into an aging society, and to derive characteristics of speech announcements for elderly people through comparison with a younger group. For this purpose, a survey was conducted in Seoul and the metropolitan area targeting 84 elderly people (aged 60 and above) and 138 young people (aged 19 to under 39). The questionnaire was composed of 5-point scales covering general information, physical abilities, auditory and visual capabilities, subway usage status, acoustic environment of subway stations, and experience and perception of speech announcements. The research results showed that elderly people had lower satisfaction with the acoustic environment of subway stations (noise and reverberation in platform and concourse) compared to young people, and showed differences in importantly recognizing speed and intelligibility as dissatisfaction factors of speech announcements. Both groups responded that improvement of noise in subway station was most needed for speech announcement. In particular, the main influencing factors for elderly person’s intelligibility of speech announcements were noise in space and loudness of speech announcement. The results of this study are expected to be utilized as basic data for establishing standards for sp |