This literature review was performed to support the development of specific research products: (1) an applications-oriented Older Driver Highway Design Handbook for practitioners; (2) an Older Driver Research Synthesis oriented toward human factors professionals and researchers; (3) a Human Factors and Highway Safety Research Synthesis capturing major findings and trends in the literature describing differences in driver performance and accident experience associated with highway design, operational, and traffic control elements; (4) Future Research Program Recommendations for human factors and highway safety studies that are focused on specified applications, and are consistent with the needs identified through other work in this project; and (5) a relational data base (RIDHER) encompassing the information elements in the research synthesis activities performed in this project.

The initial steps in this Human Factors and Highway Safety Research Synthesis involved defining key content areas for literature review; identifying and accessing data sources from which relevant technical literature could be obtained; narrowing all potentially useful citations to a target set and acquiring these reference materials; and establishing formal analysis procedures that would permit the comparison and integration of review outcomes across a number of different experts in the various content areas.