Issues in Heavy Vehicles

Abstract

The heavy vehicle industry includes medium-duty trucks, heavy-duty trucks, and buses. Vehicle size, driver location relative to the road, and duration of time in the vehicle distinguish heavy vehicles from the passenger car and light truck industry. During the past decade, the industry has been changing. Technological advances, as well as political, economic, and cultural forces, have combined to create a new environment. The driver has become more important in this new environment. A driver shortage and safety issues have heightened the interest in human factors and ergonomics in the heavy vehicle industry.

The purpose of this symposium is to highlight some of the current human factors research in the field of heavy vehicles. While there are many possible topics to discuss, the first two papers will address vehicle design issues and the second two papers will address operational issues.

Ms. Kinghorn will discuss a technique to estimate the current population of US Truck Drivers. She proposes that some of the shortcomings of the available data, such as changes in the population over the last decade and dimensions for which no data are available, can be overcome by estimating the current truck driver population from data on the general population.

Mr. Reynolds will discuss the discrepancies observed between a design eyellipse location and actual driver eye locations in a small exploratory study. He will describe the primary contributor to the discrepancy, the H-point, and suggest several other potential contributors.

Ms. Feyer will discuss a study on the effects of operational practices on driver fatigue. She will compare and contrast the operational practices of various segments of the long distance passenger and freight hauling industries. Her results indicate that different strategies must be applied to the passenger and freight industries to combat fatigue, even though the causes of fatigue are the same.

Ms. Freund is from the US Federal Highway Administration's Office of Motor Carriers. She will discuss their plans for research concerning truck and bus driver operational regulation. Specific areas that are of interest include proficiency testing, fitness for duty, and substance abuse. She will elaborate on the program, addressing driver fatigue and loss of alertness.