title: Exploratory study of fatigue in light and short haul transport drivers in NSW, Australia.
abstract: This exploratory study sought to identify relationships between work characteristics and fatigue experiences among light and short haul road transport drivers. Surveys were distributed to drivers of light goods vehicles (< or =12 t gross vehicle mass) undertaking short haul work (within a 100 km radius of base) in seven geographical regions of NSW, Australia. The participating drivers (n=321) reported a range of freight tasks. They typically worked a 50-h, 5-day week primarily as day shifts, and spent just over half of their work time driving. Despite the predominance of regular, day work, 38% of participants experienced fatigue at least once a week while driving for work and 45% had nodded off while driving during the preceding 12 months. Stepwise logistic regression analysis revealed that longer daily work hours, higher subjective work demands, as measured by the NASA TLX workload scale, and the percentage of freight movements undertaken from customers to depots each explained unique variance in the frequency of fatigue experiences. The results of the study suggest that fatigue is an issue for some light and short haul road transport drivers and identifies work characteristics that should be investigated further.
authors.affiliation: NSW Injury Risk Management Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. r.friswell@unsw.edu.au
authors.forename: Rena
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Friswell
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Williamson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000523:psychology*; D005221:Fatigue / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009517:New South Wales / Q000453:epidemiology; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D014186:Transportation; D016526:Workload