Standards and Anthropometry for Wheeled Mobility

Executive Summary

Standards for accessible design include requirements based on the anthropometry of wheeled mobility users. Key requirements apply to clear floor area, reach limits, knee and toe clearances and maneuvering clearances. Advisory information is also often included on the characteristics of mobility devices. The U.S. standards are based on research completed in the late 1970’s. Advances in wheeled mobility technology and demographic changes that have occurred since that time suggest that the U.S. standards may be out of date. Since that time, research on the anthropometry of wheeled mobility users has been conducted in Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada. All those countries have revised or are revising their standards based on that research. The IDEA Center has been collecting data on wheeled mobility users for five years and data collection will continue at least through 2006. Enough data has been collected to start a dialogue on the significance of the findings.

The research in the U.S. and the three other countries were reviewed and compared to identify needs for improving standards. Many differences were discovered in both the standards and research studies. Although research results differ, trends in the data support making many important revisions to the U.S. standards to address the reality of contemporary wheeled mobility use. But, since research methods differ from study to study, there is a need for a close analysis to understand the findings and apply them appropriately. Most of the studies were not well documented and raise many questions about the results. The IDEA Center study is well documented and provides a flexible data set to complete many different types of analyses, not all of which have been included in the present report. The comparative analyses developed for this report provide a framework for the future comparison of research findings and standards and offer a foundation for improving the utilization of research for standards development.

The analysis highlighted the importance of integrating research with standards development, organizing international research collaborations and developing international standards. Previous and ongoing research at the IDEA Center supported by the Access Board provides a foundation for all three activities.