Demonstration project for fatigue management programs in the road transport industry : summary of findings.

This document is the final summary of a series of three reports of a project on the development of model work-rest schedules that have demonstrated effectiveness for managing driver fatigue in the long distance road transport industry. The purpose of these studies was to help the industry in designing work-rest schedules to provide additional flexibility for companies and drivers to meet their operational needs but also manage fatigue most effectively. The report provides an overview of the findings of each of the three studies. The first study developed a set of fatigue-sensitive performance measures and alcohol-equivalent standards for each of them. The results also demonstrated sleep deprivation of 17 hours or more produced decrements in performance capacity equivalent to the community-accepted standard of 0.05 percent blood alcohol concentration. They also showed that long distance drivers appeared to cope with the demands of sleep deprivation better than non-professional drivers. The second and third reports detailed the evaluation of four work-rest schedules, two of which complied with the current working hours regulations and two were alternative schedules that did not comply with the regulations. The evaluations were carried out on the road while drivers were doing their normal trips. The exception was one of the alternative compliance schedule evaluations which was done with professional long distance drivers in a simulation mode rather than on-road. The results of the regulated hours evaluations showed that so long as drivers were rested before their trips, the regulated regime produced increased fatigue and produced some performance decrements at the end of a work period between long 24 hour breaks. The level of effect was not significantly high however, relative to alcohol-equivalent standards. In contrast, the alternative compliance schedule evaluations demonstrated that it is possible to introduce flexibility in scheduling such as by extending the length of work periods, but only if an adequate balance is maintained between work and rest. (A)