THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRUCK DRIVER SLEEPER BERTH SLEEP QUALITY AND SAFETY-RELATED CRITICAL EVENTS

摘要

Sleeper berths are installed in a number of interstate heavy trucks, and are employed by single or team drivers to obtain rest while on the road (OTR). A four-year evaluation of the sleep quality and quantity obtained by truck drivers while in a sleeper berth was recently completed to determine if there is a relationship between sleeper berth rest and driver performance. The sleep quantity and quality of 30 single drivers (stationary truck/sleep) and 26 team drivers (moving truck/sleep) was measured when drivers used the sleeper berth in either a 1997 Volvo 660 VN or a 1996 Peterbilt 379 instrumented class 8 tractor. Measures of sleep quantity and quality were obtained through the use of the "Nightcap" sleep monitoring system. Additional measures of sleep quality and quantity were obtained through subjective questionnaires. The instrumented trucks utilized a critical-incident based computer-controlled data acquisition system during the course of regularly-scheduled, revenue-producing trips. The results of the study show that team drivers obtain more sleep at home and OTR relative to single drivers, and sleep is of lesser quality OTR, especially for team drivers. Single drivers had many more critical incidents at all levels of severity relative to team drivers.