• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.159-163
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• 2018

Background: Fatigue and sleepiness are inter-related and common among road transport drivers. In this study, sleep deprivation and fatigue among chemical transportation drivers were examined. Methods: A cross-sectional study surveying 107 drivers from three hazardous types of chemical production and transportation industries (nonflammable gases, flammable gases, and flammable liquids) was conducted. Data on sleep deprivation were collected using questionnaires of the Stanford Sleeping Scale and the Groningen Sleep Quality Scale. Fatigue was assessed using an interview questionnaire and a flicker fusion instrument. Results: Chemical drivers had a mean sleeping scale (Stanford Sleeping Scale) of 1.98 (standard deviation 1.00) and had a mean score of 1.89 (standard deviation 2.06) on the Groningen Sleep Quality Scale. High-risk drivers had higher scores in both the Stanford Sleeping Scale and the Groningen Sleep Quality Scale with a mean score of 2.59 and 4.62, respectively, and those differences reached statistical significance (p < 0.05). The prevalence of fatigue, as assessed through a critical flicker fusion analyzer, subjective fatigue question, and either of the instruments, was 32.32%, 16.16%, and 43.43%, respectively. Drivers who slept <7 hours and had poor sleep quality were found to have more fatigue than those who slept enough and well. Drivers who had a more sleepiness score resulted in significantly more objective fatigue than those who had a less sleepiness score. Conclusion: Sleep quality and sleeping hour can affect a driver's fatigue. Optimization of work-rest model should be considered to improve productivity, driver retention, and road safety.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.124-136
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• 1999

This paper investigated the symptoms of taxi drivers' physical self-consciousness. As the subjects for the study, 374 taxi drivers participated in the survey for three months, and its result showed as follows:1. In the items of the physical symptoms, the eye's fatigue was indicated as a greatest complaint, and the corporate-taxi drivers showed a higher complaint rate than the owner-taxi drivers. 2. The survey also indicated that taxi drivers over 50 years old showed the highest complaining rate of eye's fatigue, shoulder pain, loins pain, and severe headache. Feelings of burning on empty stomach was the highest complaint factor in the age group between 30 and 39 years old, and pain and burning feelings in eyes in the age group between 20 and 29 years old.3. In the study of the complaining rate of physical symptoms by working hours, the nighttime driers complained of their self-consciousness symptoms of leg and knee pain, shoulder pain, benumbed legs, and these drivers also showed a relatively high complaint rate resulting from the responsibility of living expenses.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.101-108
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• 2014

This study highlights the theme of human error of train drivers, conducting empirical analysis on the relationship between emergency stress, psychological fatigue, safety behavior, and accident. The hypothetical test results based on questionnaires received from 223 train drivers working at A subway firm indicate that emergency stress shows a significant positive effect on psychological fatigue, which in turn shows a significant negative influence on safety behavior. And safety behavior is shown having a significant negative relationship with accident. These results suggest the necessity of corporate-level approaches to depict the drastic causes of drivers' emergency stress, and to effectively manage this stress, as well as the necessity of making effort to enhance safety behavior, and to prevent or reduce accidents.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.69-83
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• 2006

The purpose of the present driving simulation study was to investigate the effects of fatigue induced both by sleep deprivation and time-on-task on driver's driving performance. The results are as followings. First, although the drivers in almost every experimental conditions showed faster driving speed than that was required, the drivers in the sleep-deprivation and over 1-hour time-on-task condition drove slower than the target speed. Second, the drivers in the sleep-deprivation and over 1-hour time-on-task condition crossed the lane less frequently than those in the other conditions, they weaved more in the lane. Third, as the drivers became more fatigued both by sleep deprivation and continuous driving, they reported higher fatigue scores in the subjective fatigue ratings. The results suggested that although the drivers might adapt a compensative driving strategies when they were fatigued, their driving performances were indeed impaired, in general.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.197-206
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• 1994

The effect of dietary factors on the self-reported symptoms of fatigue were surveyed by the interviewing method among 119 taxi drivers in Cheonan area. It was shown that 86.5% of them were working over 11 hours a day and 34.4% of them over 16 hours. the level of job satisfaction was very low. Many of them felt fatigue during driving. Some symptoms of fatigue which many taxi drives said to be suffered from were headache physical exhaustion nervousness tired and sore eyes and anorexia. When related variables to the self-reported symptoms of fatigue were analyzed daily sleeping hours and exercise were significantly correlated with physical mental and neuro-motor fatigue, Subjects who had meals irregularly were greater than those who had regularly. In addition they tended to eat faster during working and 28.6% of them seldom had breakfast. Subjects who had meals irregularly consumed significantly less fat iron calcium vitamin A, and riboflavin. A and riboflavin and niacin than those who skipped it.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.23 no.58
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• pp.71-79
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• 2000

In this study, through the roadside interview, drivers'feeling about fatigue has been evaluated synthetically and systematically when they drive a vehicle according to their sex, vehicle type, driving career, etc. Also, with the human sensibility evaluation technique, we grasped the human sensibility structure for the fatigue in a vehicle and as an objective evaluation index for comfort and fatigue in a vehicle, we developed a sensibility database. Through the survey and research, extracting and understanding the importance of factors which have influence on the fatigue in driving can be used as basic data that can suggest more comfort and pleasant driving environment to drivers. Also, human sensibility database regarding to the comfort and fatigue in a vehicle can be used as basic data in ergonomic vehicle design, evaluation for seat , comfort seat development, development of vibration reduction method and so on.

• Journal of East-West Nursing Research
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.71-81
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• 2009

Purpose: This study was conducted to find out interrelation of health behavior and related variables to provide basic data for an effective health promotion for the taxi-divers. Methods: 293 male taxi-drivers from 2 cities in Korea participated in this study. The data were collected using questionnaires from April 17th to Jun 3rd, 2006, and analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation, and multiple regression. Results: There were statistically significant differences according to monthly income, past illness or surgery, current disease or medication, frequency of fright on daily driving (FFDD), driving fatigue, working style, social support in health status; current disease or medication, FFDD, driving fatigue, duty shift, social support in health perception; body mass index (BMI), FFDD, driving fatigue, intention of changing job, social support in health behavior. Social support, health status, health perception, and health behavior were significantly correlated with one another. The multiple regression analysis showed that health perception (17.8%), BMI (6.8%), intention of changing job (5.7%), and driving fatigue (4.2%) explained the 34.5% variance of health behavior. And the 22.6% of variance of health perception was explained by social support (12.2%), health status (6.9%), and duty shift (3.2%). Conclusions: To promote the taxi-drivers' health, nursing intervention strategies unique for them should consider health behavior and affecting factors.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.1434-1440
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• 2011

In this paper, we assessed muscular activities of lower limbs and foot pressure for car and bus drivers according to operating three electronic pedals that we developed. To analyze drivers' physical exhaustion, muscular fatigue of lower limbs was evaluated. Eleven car drivers and six urban bus drivers were participated in this experiment. The virtual driving system was used for the real driving environment. The virtual driving system was comprised of a spring seat, a steering wheel, pedals (clutch, excel and brake pedals), a manual transmission and a virtual driving simulation. For the real vibration like situation on the road, six degree of freedom motion base system was used. Measured muscles were rectus femoris (RF), biceps femoris (BF), tibialis anterior (TA) and gastrocnemius (Gn) muscles. For the quantitative muscular activities, integrated electromyography (IEMG) was analyzed. Muscular fatigues also were analyzed through the analysis of the median frequency. In addition, foot pressures were analyzed and compared through the peak and averaged pressure during the operating three developed electronic pedals. The experiments are conducted with total 17 drivers, 11 general public and 6 drivers. As a result of the analysis, electromyogram and fatigue analysis through intermediate frequency reduction for pedal-1 more efficient than other pedals. And foot pressure also was decreased. Consequently, we suggested the most efficient pedal and method to minimize the amount of cumulative fatigue.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.148-154
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• 2022

Background: Bus driving is a mentally demanding activity that requires prolonged attention to ensure safety. The aim of the study was to assess mental fatigue caused by driving a public bus and to find a profile of workers at higher risk. Methods: We evaluated changes of critical flicker fusion (CFF) (index of central arousal) and heart rate variability (HRV) (index of autonomic balance) in a 6-hour driving shift on a real route, in 31 professional bus drivers, and we tested the influence of personal factors such as sleep quality, BMI, and age. Paired t-test was used to test differences of CFF and HRV between both initial and final phase of driving, while multiple linear regression tested the influence of personal variables on the indexes of mental fatigue. Results: Results showed that CFF significantly decreased after 6 hours of bus driving (41.91 Hz, sd 3.31 vs. 41.15 Hz, sd 3.15; p = 0.041), and heart rate significantly decreased in the final phase of driving, with respect to the initial phase (85 vs. 78 bpm, p = 0.027). Increasing age (beta = -0.729, p = 0.022), risk of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (beta = -0.530, p = 0.04), and diurnal sleepiness (beta = -0.406, p = 0.017) showed a significant effect on influencing mental fatigue. Conclusion: Elderly drivers at higher risk of sleep disorders are more prone to mental fatigue, when exposed to driving activity. Monitoring indexes of central arousal and autonomic balance, coupled with the use of structured questionnaires can represent a useful strategy to detect profile of workers at higher risk of mental fatigue in such duty.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.29 no.10
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• pp.1149-1156
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• 2012

In this study, we proposed the most efficient driving posture based on the analysis of quantitative muscular strength and fatigue degree according to posture. Since driving include complicated actions required by a variety of ability and cause by extremes concentration or strain, drivers tend to feel tired easily. However, drivers can't recognize the fatigue degree by themselves. Moreover, the method for measuring the quantitative fatigue degree exactly is quite difficult to be secured. 9 professional bus drivers were participated. We analyzed the quantitative legs' muscular strength when operating each pedal. And then we also analyzed the muscular strength and muscular fatigue degree according to driving pattern during bus driving. Therefore, we suggested the most efficient driving posture.