title: The impact of continuous driving time and rest time on commercial drivers' driving performance and recovery.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This real road driving study was conducted to investigate the effects of driving time and rest time on the driving performance and recovery of commercial coach drivers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Thirty-three commercial coach drivers participated in the study, and were divided into three groups according to driving time: (a) 2 h, (b) 3 h, and (c) 4 h. The Stanford Sleepiness Scale (SSS) was used to assess the subjective fatigue level of the drivers. One-way ANOVA was employed to analyze the variation in driving performance.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The statistical analysis revealed that driving time had a significant effect on the subjective fatigue and driving performance measures among the three groups. After 2 h of driving, both the subjective fatigue and driving performance measures began to deteriorate. After 4 h of driving, all of the driving performance indicators changed significantly except for depth perception. A certain amount of rest time eliminated the negative effects of fatigue. A 15-minute rest allowed drivers to recover from a two-hour driving task. This needed to be prolonged to 30 min for driving tasks of 3 to 4 h of continuous driving.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Drivers' attention, reactions, operating ability, and perceptions are all affected in turn after over 2 h of continuous driving. Drivers should take a certain amount of rest to recover from the fatigue effects before they continue driving.
authors.affiliation: School of Transportation Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China. Electronic address: rock510@163.com.
authors.forename: Lianzhen
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Traffic College, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China.
authors.forename: Yulong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Pei
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002681:China; D005221:Fatigue / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012146:Rest / Q000502:physiology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013997:Time Factors; D014186:Transportation / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000078329:Workforce
keywords: Commercial coach drivers; Driving performance; Driving time; Fatigue driving; Rest time