Evaluation of Training Interventions to Mitigate Effects of Fatigue and Sleepiness on Driving Performance

Abstract

Fatigue and sleepiness are leading contributors to road crashes. Either can occur in the evening, sometime around 10:00 p.m., after a day that begins in the morning, sometime around 8:00 a.m. Other factors contribute as well to performance decrements in the evening for those who regularly work during the day. It is arguably the case that these various factors are responsible for the observed decrements in safety-critical driving skills, such as hazard anticipation, hazard mitigation, and attention maintenance, which occur in the evening. However, it is by no means clear whether a training program can be designed to mitigate the effects that such factors have on these critical driving skills. A simulator experiment was undertaken to determine whether a training program [sleepiness and fatigue evaluation training (SAFE-T)] could lead to improvements in the hazard anticipation, hazard mitigation, and attention maintenance skills of drivers who had been awake for 12 h. The results showed that for all three skills trained drivers performed significantly better during the posttest (after SAFE-T) than the pretest (before SAFE-T), whereas the placebo drivers performed significantly worse during the posttest than the pretest. Fatigue and sleepiness both increased during the posttest from their pretest values. Thus the effects of training are still observed even in the presence of increases in fatigue and sleepiness.

Sequential In-Vehicle Glance Analysis of Attention Maintenance Behavior for Trained and Untrained Young Drivers

“…Future research should address these limitations and more closely examine relationships between the effect of the existing training and drivers' ability to control attention in tasks requiring different levels and types of information processing. Additionally, future research can examine the moderating effects of fatigue, drowsiness and sleepiness (e.g., Hamid et al, 2016) on both trained and untrained drivers' AM behavior, specifically their sequential glance behavior.…”

“…The present study aims to apply the two methods of analyzing in-vehicle glance behaviors to data obtained from young drivers trained either on an integrated program (SAFE-T; Hamid, Samuel, Borowsky, Horrey & Fisher, 2016;Yamani, Samuel, Knodler, & Fisher, 2016) or a placebo program, and examine how the training program influences the drivers' glancing behaviors while driving. Briefly, SAFE-T is a PC-based integrated training program targeting three higher cognitive skills, hazard anticipation (Pradhan et al, 2005), hazard mitigation (Muttart et al, 2013(Muttart et al, , 2014 and attention maintenance (Pradhan et al, 2009), and proven effective in improving all the three skills on a driving simulator study (Yamani et al, 2016).…”

Analysis of Visual Scanning Patterns Comparing Drivers of Simulated L2 and L0 Systems

“…Each driver navigated a single drive consisting of four types of traffic environment (highway, town, rural, and residential). These scenarios have been used in previous experiments ( 18 – 20 ). The highway segment involved a two-lane high-speed divided highway with no buildings or vegetation on the sides.…”

Latent Hazard Anticipation in Young Drivers: Review and Meta-Analysis of Training Studies

“…Simulator evaluation of SAFE-T (a training program that integrates training on hazard anticipation, hazard mitigation, and attention maintenance skills) demonstrated effectiveness of training for trained young drivers compared with control ( 34 ), and RAPT training conditions ( 35 ), even though the RAPT portion of the program took only one-third of the duration of the original RAPT program. SAFE-T was also administered to improve the hazard anticipation behavior of individuals following either a short or a long total-awake-time, and was shown to be effective for long shift workers ( 36 ). ACCEL is an Internet-disseminable, omnibus training program that takes SAFE-T a step further and trains on both the tactical and strategic components of hazard anticipation, hazard mitigation, and attention maintenance behaviors.…”