Research Framework for Studying Transit Bus Driver Distraction.

摘要

The increase in transit bus ridership nationally during the past ten years, along with the proliferation of personal electronic control and communication gadgets is causing more distractions for the drivers. Earlier research studies have found driver distraction to be a significant cause of accidents on the highway. The transit bus driver distraction has received limited attention in the literature even though transit bus accidents may cause more injuries due to larger number of passengers. Unlike personal vehicles, where most of the distraction is within the control of the driver, for transit vehicles, some distractions are caused by factors beyond the drivers control such as operating additional equipment, attending to passengers, and communicating with the operations center. Due to lack of reporting of distractions by transit drivers and very limited research studies, transit bus driver distraction is not clearly understood and no established research framework is available to conduct a detailed study of transit bus drivers distraction. Every study at a transit agency is conducted independently from start to finish at the cost of additional time and resources. The objective of this project was to develop a modular research framework for studying transit bus driver distractions. The framework would provide a transit agency with a set of standardized modular methodologies for studying distraction over a wide range of cost and time intervals. An agency could choose one or more modules to suit their study requirements. These modules for data collection, analysis, validation, and interpretation and usage of results are designed on the basis of in-depth studies and tests at transit agencies in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The results are reproduced in this report for purposes of illustrating the type of outputs obtainable from the framework and are not meant to reflect the accuracy of the data and model results.