One job or two?

Truck driver work, sleep, alertness and performance

Hamish Mackie

Work (14 hours, incl commuting)

Sleep (8 hours)

Life: exercise, eating recreation, chores, family, community

(2 hours!!!?)

Problem / Questions

Study design
Initial meetings with operators and day with driver to scope issues and task demands

Questionnaire (225 drivers, 16% of pop)

Anonymous information from operators used to validate some variables (weight, hearing etc)

In cab half-day driver interviews (15 drivers)

Industry focus group for recommendations

Key Findings

Obesity: Nutrition/exercise Workplace injuries

Work/life balance (incl working

hours and fatigue)

Drowsy drivers
50 45 40 35

% of drivers

30 25 20 15 10 5 0 4 5 6 7 8 9 or more Hours of sleep per night drowsy now and then drowsy at least "fairly regularly"

25% of drivers report getting 4-5 hours sleep per night

15% of drivers report feeling drowsy while truck driving on a frequent basis

Log truck driver sleep, alertness and performance

Loss of control log truck roll-overs 2001-2009

55

50

45

40

35
No. of Crashes

30

25

20

15

10

0 Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Day of Week Friday Saturday Sunday

Considerations and purpose

Purpose: Describe the sleep patterns of log truck drivers Determine whether sleep patterns are likely to be contributors to early working week crash risk.

Activity counts
1000 1500 2500 3000

2000

Study method

500

Two main stages of data collection:

2) A survey of drivers (45 drivers, 7-day sleep diary only plus questions)

1) Validation of a sleep diary using activity monitors (12 drivers, both sleep diary and activity monitor for 1 week)

Time

7:22:00 8:01:00 8:40:00 9:19:00 9:58:00 10:37:00 11:16:00 11:55:00 12:34:00 13:13:00 13:52:00 14:31:00 15:10:00 15:49:00 16:28:00 17:07:00 17:46:00 18:25:00 19:04:00 19:43:00 20:22:00 21:01:00 21:40:00 22:19:00 22:58:00 23:37:00 0:16:00 0:55:00 1:34:00 2:13:00 2:52:00 3:31:00 4:10:00 4:49:00 5:28:00 6:07:00 6:46:00

Findings
Summary of Sleep diary results for each night of the week
Night Time to bed (average) 8:15 PM 8:15 PM 8:20 PM 8:45 PM 9:45 PM Time asleep (average) Time wake (average) Total Sleep duration (average) 6hrs 17min 6hrs 17min 6hrs 16min 6hrs 31min 8hrs 39min Rating of sleep (average)* 3.4 3.6 3.5 3.7 4.1

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

8:40 PM 8:37 PM 8:39 PM 9:00 PM 10:15 PM

3:02 AM 2:54 AM 2:49 AM 3:28 AM 6:40 AM

Saturday
Sunday

9:02 PM
8:08 PM

9:33 PM
8:37 PM

6:17 AM
2:55 AM

7hrs 48min
6hrs 29min

3.7
3.5

* 1 = very bad, 5 = great

Findings
Summary of Sleep diary results for week nights
90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
Generally recommended hours sleep per night

Number of weekday driver nights

Hours sleep (per night)

Belenky et al. (2003), J Sleep Res, 12, 1-12

Questionnaire results
Times of the week (Monday am, Monday pm, Tuesday am etc) drivers felt they were at most risk of tiredness, fatigue or loss of attention
75

70
65

tiredness risk

60

55
50 45

40
Mon am Mon pm Tues am Tues pm Wed am Wed pm Thurs Thurs Fri am Fri pm am pm

Questionnaire results
Comments from those who ranked Mondays or Tuesdays as times of high risk for tiredness, fatigue or loss of attention :

Questionnaire results
What could be done to make tiredness or fatigue less of a problem for log truck drivers?:
Solution mentioned Less hours Regular start times higher wages later start Eat well / stay healthy (+ provision) Take breaks More sleep Improve scheduling Awareness/encouragement Log book pressure Stimulants Education public Manage weekend Places to pull over and socialise longer breaks Better roads Count 12 7 7 4 4 4 4 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Conclusions
Not enough sleep

Work during risky hours

Weekend/weekday transition problems? Current working hours related to many driver issues

Sleep Work (14 hours, incl (8 hours) commuting)

Life: exercise, eating recreation, chores, family, community

(2 hours!!!?)

Thank you