CONTEXTUALIZING NATURALISTIC DRIVING DATA IN A RURAL STATE AMONG DRIVERS WITH AND WITHOUT OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA

Area of Science:

• Transportation safety research
• Sleep medicine
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Background:

• Naturalistic driving studies utilize Global Positioning System (GPS) data for environmental context.
• Previous work automated GPS data contextualization with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) databases.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze driving environment exposure differences between drivers with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and controls.
• To demonstrate automated GPS data contextualization methods in a real-world driving scenario.

Main Methods:

• Utilized 1 Hz GPS data from 80 OSA drivers and 48 controls.
• Merged GPS data with Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) GIS databases for environmental context.
• Compared driving exposure metrics between OSA and control groups.

Main Results:

• Most driving environment exposures were similar between OSA and control drivers.
• OSA drivers showed slightly increased time on roads with 500-10,000 annual traffic counts.
• OSA drivers exhibited reduced time on wider highways, during twilight, and on roads with 10,000-25,000 annual traffic counts.

Conclusions:

• Automated GPS-GIS contextualization effectively compares driving exposures.
• Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) may be associated with subtle shifts in driving environment selection.
• Findings suggest generally similar driving behaviors between OSA and control groups despite minor environmental exposure differences.