Driver Fatigue Through Nightshifts in Succession

摘要

Coal Services (Health and Safety Trust)funded ARRB TransportrnResearch Ltd to investigate fatigue and performance of truck drivers overrnconsecutive shifts.The main questions were to assess:What is the mostrnimportant contributor to acute fatigue in mining?Is it length of shiftrn(eg eight hours versus 12 hours)or is it time of day (eg circadian effects)?rnWhat is the limit of successive day or night shifts before chronic fatiguernaffects operator performance in open cut mines?The projectrnmethodology included utilising ARRB Fatigue Monitoring Devicesrn(forced-choice stimulus reaction)in eight haul trucks,testing 24 subjectsrnover several weeks.Each subject filled in a Fatigue Risk Questionnairernon lifestyle and health.Operators worked a 14-night,one day off,13-dayrnroster of 12-hour shifts in a fly-in/fly-out operation with excellentrnopportunities for restorative sleep between shifts.A total of 3500 hours ofrnreal-time data was collected,representing the first set of objective,rnreal-time driver performance data for Australian mining.rnThe data showed that for a single night of driving haul trucks,therernappears to be no effect on operator fatigue from the amount of time onrntask (for the 12 hours).In fact performance was worse through the firstrneight hours than the last four.The circadian influence had a strongerrnaffect than working more than eight hours.Of the 14 nights worked at thernsite,nights 13,14,seven and two respectively,were the worst.Thisrnpresents a conundrum for policy makers who may like to place caps onrnworking hours or rosters in the hope that it will alleviate the fatigue issue.rnIt will not.The major finding within this study is the combined influencernof circadian rhythms (human body clock)and individual variability onrnperformance.The lifestyle habits and the health of individuals have arnprofound effect on operator performance as shown by the strong positiverncorrelation between high fatigue risk scores from the Fatigue RiskrnQuestionnaire and poor performance.An individualistic approach wouldrnappear to have the best chance of reducing high potential incidents due tornfatigue through successive nightshifts.