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

What health and fitness problems

are log truck drivers facing?

How significant are these problems?

What can we do about it?

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

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

4 5 6 7 8 9 or more

Hours of sleep per night

% o

f d

rive

rs

drowsy nowand then

drowsy atleast "fairlyregularly"

• 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 driversleep, alertness and performance

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Day of Week

No

. of

Cra

shes

Loss of control log truck ‘roll-overs’ 2001-2009

Purpose:

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

Considerations and purpose

Study method

Two main stages of data collection:

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

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

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

7:22

:00

8:01

:00

8:40

:00

9:19

:00

9:58

:00

10:3

7:00

11:1

6:00

11:5

5:00

12:3

4:00

13:1

3:00

13:5

2:00

14:3

1:00

15:1

0:00

15:4

9:00

16:2

8:00

17:0

7:00

17:4

6:00

18:2

5:00

19:0

4:00

19:4

3:00

20:2

2:00

21:0

1:00

21:4

0:00

22:1

9:00

22:5

8:00

23:3

7:00

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

Activ

ity co

unts

Time

Findings

Night Time to bed

(average)

Time asleep (average)

Time wake (average)

Total Sleep duration (average)

Rating of sleep

(average)*

Monday 8:15 PM 8:40 PM 3:02 AM 6hrs 17min 3.4

Tuesday 8:15 PM 8:37 PM 2:54 AM 6hrs 17min 3.6

Wednesday 8:20 PM 8:39 PM 2:49 AM 6hrs 16min 3.5

Thursday 8:45 PM 9:00 PM 3:28 AM 6hrs 31min 3.7

Friday 9:45 PM 10:15 PM 6:40 AM 8hrs 39min 4.1

Saturday 9:02 PM 9:33 PM 6:17 AM 7hrs 48min 3.7

Sunday 8:08 PM 8:37 PM 2:55 AM 6hrs 29min 3.5

* 1 = very bad, 5 = great

Summary of Sleep diary results for each night of the week

Findings

Summary of Sleep diary results for week nights

0102030405060708090

Num

ber o

f wee

kday

dr

iver

nig

hts

Hours sleep (per night)

Generally recommended 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

40

45

50

55

60

65

70

75

Mon am

Mon pm

Tues am

Tues pm

Wed am

Wed pm

Thurs am

Thurs pm

Fri am Fri pm

tire

dnes

s ri

sk

Questionnaire results

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

Catches up with me after

weekend off

Monday morning getting back to normal and fresh start to week.

Hard to adjust after

weekend Mon morning

Questionnaire resultsWhat could be done to make tiredness or fatigue less of a problem for log truck drivers?:

Solution mentioned CountLess hours 12Regular start times 7higher wages 7later start 4Eat well / stay healthy (+ provision) 4Take breaks 4More sleep 4Improve scheduling 2Awareness/encouragement 1Log book pressure 1Stimulants 1Education public 1Manage weekend 1Places to pull over and socialise 1longer breaks 1Better roads 1

Conclusions

Not enough sleep

Work during risky hours

Weekend/weekday transition problems?

Current working hours related to many driver issues

Work (14 hours, incl commuting)

Sleep (8 hours)

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

(2 hours!!!?)

Thank you