Fatigue-Inducing Factors in Transportation Operators

Abstract

Knowledge of the factors that make the operator become fatigued is a founding pillar of fatigue risk management. In this chapter, we introduce a model of the fatigue-inducing factors especially in the context of road transportation. In addition to the person, organization, and industry- and society-related factors that may exacerbate fatigue, we include in the model some pivotal factors that modify the effects and consequences of operator fatigue. Examples of these modifying factors are individual resilience to sleep restriction and organizational resilience to performance errors made by fatigued operators. The main outcome of the analysis of the fatigue-exacerbating factors is that many of them are amenable to change, such as operators’ health status and health-related lifestyle, shift and route scheduling, organizational resilience to operator fatigue, and organizational safety culture. In the key role is organizational safety culture, as it largely determines whether the company’s management and staff try to keep on-the-job-fatigue hidden or take mitigating actions.