Professional Driver Training and Driver Stress: Effects on Simulated Driving Performance

Book chapter from Traffic and Transport Psychology, edited by G. Underwood, published by Elsevier, 2005

Managing driver fatigue: education or motivation?

Fatigue has been recognised as the primary contributing factor in approximately 15% of all fatal road crashes in Australia. To develop effective countermeasures for managing fatigue, this study investigates why drivers continue to drive when sleepy, and driver perceptions and behaviours in regards to countermeasures. Based on responses from 305 Australian drivers, it was identified that the major reasons why these participants continued to drive when sleepy were: wanting to get to their destination; being close to home; and time factors. Participants’ perceptions and use of 18 fatigue countermeasures were investigated. It was found that participants perceived the safest strategies, including stopping and sleeping, swapping drivers and stopping for a quick nap, to be the most effective countermeasures. However, it appeared that their knowledge of safe countermeasures did not translate into their use of these strategies. For example, although the drivers perceived stopping for a quick nap to be an effective countermeasure, they reported more frequent use of less safe methods such as stopping to eat or drink and winding down the window. This finding suggests that, while practitioners should continue educating drivers, they may need a greater focus on motivating drivers to implement safe fatigue countermeasures

Exploring Knowledge Engineering Strategies in Designing and Modelling a Road Traffic Accident Management Domain

Formulating knowledge for use in AI Planning engines is currently something of an ad-hoc process, where the skills of knowledge engineers and the tools they use may significantly influence the quality of the resulting planning application. There is little in the way of guidelines or standard procedures, however, for knowledge engineers to use when formulating knowledge into planning domain languages such as PDDL. This paper seeks to investigate this process using as a case study a road traffic accident management domain. Managing road accidents requires systematic, sound planning and coordination of resources to improve outcomes for accident victims. We have derived a set of requirements in consultation with stakeholders for the resource coordination part of managing accidents. We evaluate two separate knowledge engineering strategies for encoding the resulting planning domain from the set of requirements: (a) the traditional method of PDDL experts and text editor, and (b) a leading planning GUI with built in UML modelling tools. These strategies are evaluated using process and product metrics, where the domain model (the product) was tested extensively with a range of planning engines. The results give insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches, highlight lessons learned regarding knowledge encoding, and point to important lines of research for knowledge engineering for planning

Smart distribution board overload detector by using microcontroller

A statistic by Economic Planning Unit (EPU) on the electricity growth in Malaysia has shown an increment in line with economic growth [1]. In line with government policies, the energy supply industry has been molding itself to cater to the rapid development of the nation in hopes of creating a better and smarter nation [2]. There are many developments and implementation of smart energy consumption to save energy and cater to future energy challenges

Unstable Slope Management Program

INE/AUTC 11.1

Online korean skincare decision support system

Despite the explosive growth of electronic commerce and the rapidly increasing number of consumers who use interactive media for pre-purchase information search and online shopping, very little is known about how consumers make purchase decisions in such settings. One desirable form of interactivity from a consumer perspective is the implementation of sophisticated tools to assist shoppers in their purchase decisions by customizing the electronic shopping environment to their individual preferences

Informal Self-Employment and Poverty Alleviation: Empirical Evidence from Motorcycle Taxi Riders in Nigeria

This study examines the role of an urban informal transport sub-sector; the motorcycle taxis (popularly called ‘okada’), towards the provision of self-employment and income-generating opportunities for many of the urban unemployed in South West Nigeria. The data for the study was generated from a survey of 777 randomly selected auto cycle riders in two cities in Nigeria and the SPSS software aided data analyses. In addition to the descriptive analyses, two econometric models were specified and estimated using the OLS technique. The study revealed that the subsector is a high employer of young school leavers in the accident-prone job of okada riding. Earnings analyses show that 86% of the operators earn above the minimum wage level while human capital variables explain earnings distribution. Implications of the findings of the study point to the need for a more rigorous regulation of the sector to promote safety of operators and passengers. Keywords: Okada, Self-employment, Earnings, Human capital, Motorcycle, Tax

Common sense common safety

"A report by Lord Young of Graffham to the Prime Minister following a Whitehall‑wide review of the operation of health and safety laws and the growth of the compensation culture" - Cover

Can the Heinrich ratio be used to predict harm from medication errors?

The purpose of this study was to establish whether, for medication errors, there exists a fixed Heinrich ratio between the number of incidents which did not result in harm, the number that caused minor harm, and the number that caused serious harm. If this were the case then it would be very useful in estimating any changes in harm following an intervention. Serious harm resulting from medication errors is relatively rare, so it can take a great deal of time and resource to detect a significant change. If the Heinrich ratio exists for medication errors, then it would be possible, and far easier, to measure the much more frequent number of incidents that did not result in harm and the extent to which they changed following an intervention; any reduction in harm could be extrapolated from this

A Comparison of Local Authority Procedures in Road Safety.

It has been recognised that there are large differences in the working practices of safety teams amongst the highway authorities of Great Britain. This study was undertaken to assist the development of short courses in safety and accident analysis for (amongst others) road safety staff and traffic engineers. The main objective of the study was to discern differences in working practices between three different kinds of highway authority. The study also enabled University and local authority personnel to work together to identify more precisely the teaching objectives in certain proposed courses in safety; and to identify and provide appropriate course material, within the overall aim of making such courses relevant to a wider range of audience