The world is currently experiencing two major demographic transitions: the aging of populations and urbanisation. With advances in healthcare and the standard of living, people are living longer and healthier lives. And they are demanding a better quality of life. As a consequence, it is absolutely evident that urban personal mobility is a key topic in “helping seniors live the lives they want to lead”. This is the origin of the SilverStream project. In fact, the majority of individuals over 65 have very similar transportation needs to the needs of the general population, as never before. They travel for shopping, getting to work, for medical appointments and for leisure activities. Nonetheless, they lack transportation solutions that fit their needs – existing cars are not able to adapt to the various levels of capabilities of ageing individuals which means that a priori many potential customers are excluded from the private vehicle market. As a consequence, they are excluded from numerous societal activities and this has a serious impact on their quality of life, on the quality of life of the people they must depend on, and on the ageing process itself which is lived negatively. Offering a private vehicle solution that can adapt to its user and empower its user to fulfil his/her everyday needs and aspirations is a ground-breaking approach to inclusion and healthy ageing.
The ambitious ultimate goal of SilverStream was to develop and make available a radically new L6e vehicle in the field of urban personal mobility for elderly people. In particular, SilverStream developed and demonstrated a radically new light and affordable vehicle concept (L-category) for the aging population in congested European cities with scarce parking space. The starting point for the SilverStream vehicle was the fundamental requirement for providing personal mobility in order to guarantee a high quality level of life and socialization, and, thus, the health and well-being of the society. Freedom of movement provides many social, functional, educational, medical and recreational opportunities to do everything from visiting friends, going shopping and attending theatres, to just going out to get an occasional tea and biscuits. Yet, elder people face significant barriers to personal mobility because of the relentless trend for urbanisation, which implies an overall increased frequency of classical daily operations while a considerable large amount of information must be dealt with; all together, this leads to an higher level of cognitive and physical stress, which represents a major problem for elderly people.
Hence, the SilverStream project combined both ergonomic concepts conceived for elderly people and advanced automotive technologies for improved driveability and energy efficiency. SilverStream was focused on the development of a comprehensive set of technologies covering the whole vehicle, driven by a team of experts in the field of medical and cognitive science domain through a top/down approach, which was integrated into a demonstrator running in a realistic test environment. The vehicle was characterized by:
- stylish L6e MPV for urban mobility and tailored to elderly people’s needs based on space-frame with proven crashworthiness
- modular approach oriented towards product industrialisation thus allowing the development of a family of L vehicles
- advanced ergonomic features (gesture recognition “on air” HMI, adaptive seats, rear e-lift)
- 4WD and increased steering angles for improved manoeuvrability and parking operations based on in-wheel motor technology
- hybrid energy storage system (supercapacitor and Li-Ion battery technology) for improved system life-time
- dual 12/48 V power network and microelectronic technologies for improved efficiency and system integration
