Analysis of different entrance configuration
There were many different actions for the subjects
during the entering and leaving the car. Six main phases
could be recognised, namely: lifting in their feet, lifting
in their body, correcting their sitting posture in the
seat, lifting out their feet, lifting out their body and
correcting their sitting posture in the wheelchair or
handling crutches.
The times for the different phases were measured
from the video-films. Table 3 shows the average times
for the three fastest entries and exits for the wheelchair
users, and Table 4 for the ambulant disabled. The times
for the total cycle including both entering and leaving
the car varied between 23 and 140 seconds for the
wheelchair users, and between 9 and 76 seconds for the
ambulant disabled. The normal time differences of
each phase for a single subject in the three fastest
situations were about +30% of the average, and of
the total cycle time about +3-22% of the average.
In the analysis of the impact of various door opening
dimensions on the entering and leaving operations, the
increased times of the different phases were calculated
for each subject using the times in Tables 3 and 4 as a
basis. The graphs in Figures 5-8 show the mean values
of these times for the wheelchair users and the
ambulant disabled subjects.