Use of Omnidirectional Images to Analyze Elderly People′s Feelings of Insecurity about Snatch Occurrences on Roads

Abstract

Safety and security are essential to successful, sustainable communities. To build and maintain such communities, research on their safety must be carried out and appropriate policies enacted. In developed countries, the proportion of elderly people is increasing; furthermore, elderly people are easy targets for street crime. Therefore, they might feel insecure, even on safe roads. In this study, in order to understand the road features that people encounter daily that make them feel secure or insecure, authors used omnidirectional images. Authors assessed the percentages of space that different road features (buildings, open spaces, and other road characteristics) occupy in each image and clarified the relationship between these features and elderly people′s feelings of security or insecurity in relation to snatch occurrences. The results were as follows: (1) areas with the highest rate of snatch occurrences and feelings of security had the highest percentage of high-rise buildings (4.6%), all types of buildings (24.2%), sidewalks (19.2%), and setbacks (3.5%), and the lowest percentages of detached houses (0.9%), roads (4.5%), and sky (33%); and (2) areas with low rates of snatch occurrences and unreasonable feelings of insecurity had no high-rise buildings, high percentages of detached houses (9%), roads (19%), and sky (44%), and low percentages of sidewalks (1.5%) and setbacks (0.9%).