An analysis of driving and working hour on commercial motor vehicle driver safety using naturalistic data collection

Current hours-of-service (HOS) regulations prescribe limits to commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers' operating hours. By using naturalistic-data-collection, researchers were able to assess activities performed in the 14-h workday and the relationship between safety-critical events (SCEs) and driving hours, work hours, and breaks. The data used in the analyses were collected in the Naturalistic Truck Driving Study and included 97 drivers and about 735,000 miles of continuous driving data. An assessment of the drivers' workday determined that, on average, drivers spent 66% of their shift driving, 23% in non-driving work, and 11% resting. Analyses evaluating the relationship between driving hours (i.e., driving only) and SCE risk found a time-on-task effect across hours, with no significant difference in safety outcomes between 11th driving hour and driving hours 8, 9 or 10. Analyses on work hours (i.e., driving in addition to non-driving work) found that risk of being involved in an SCE generally increased as work hours increased. This suggests that time-on-task effects may not be related to driving hours alone, but implies an interaction between driving hours and work hours: if a driver begins the day with several hours of non-driving work, followed by driving that goes deep into the 14-h workday, SCE risk was found to increase. Breaks from driving were found to be beneficial in reducing SCEs (during 1-h window after a break) and were effective in counteracting the negative effects of time-on-task.