Fatigue is a known contributor to maritime accidents, with roster patterns, shift schedules, and job roles identified as key risk factors in long-distance shipping. This exploratory study investigates whether similar patterns exist in ferry operations. Sixty-three UK ferry workers participated in a field study involving at least 2 weeks of on-duty data collection. Participants wore activity monitors and completed sleep diaries and 9-point scale ratings of sleepiness (KSS), stress, and workload. The sample included four roster types, three work schedules, and six job roles; 52%slept onboard, while others returned home between shifts. Sleepiness on duty (KSS ≥ 7) was reported in 27% of shifts. The shortest sleep was observed in participants working 12-h split shifts and 8 weeks on/4 weeks off rosters. However, the greatest number of shifts with KSS ≥ 7 were found in workers on 2 weeks on/2 weeks off and 1 week on/1 week off rosters. Bridge crew reported the most stress, and service crew the highest workload. Sleep location (onboard vs. home) did not significantly affect outcomes. Fatigue was widespread across roles and schedules, suggesting that mitigation strategies should target the entire workforce. Split shifts should be avoided, and current regulations are insufficient to manage fatigue effectively.

This paper presents a focused look at findings related to driver fatigue from Use Case A (UCA) of EU project PANACEA (grant agreement number 953426). UCA considers safety drivers of autonomous shuttles. For safety and regulation reasons all shuttles have a driver present ready to intervene if needed. In practice, this means that the safety driver is responsible for ensuring the safety of both passengers and surrounding road users. 8 shuttle safety drivers (100% of those available) participated. Subjective driver sleepiness was reported daily at the start and end of each shift using the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale. Potential risk for driver sleepiness was calculated using the Bordeaux Sleepiness Scale (BOSS). Overall, sleepiness was a rare experience (mean KSS start shift = 3, mean KSS end shift = 3.1). However, those identified as potentially at-risk using BOSS had some experiences of sleepiness (KSS = 7) on some shifts. The PANACEA system uses input from sensors in the vehicle, workplace depot and on the driver, creating a holistic monitoring and assessment system. This detects professional drivers who are not fit to drive and supports them and their employers to manage the situation and adopt preventive measures. 

Aims: 

Burnout is caused by long term psychosocial stress and has, besides the fatigue and mental health burden, been associated with increased risk of adverse physical health, such as type 2 diabetes. Physical activity seems to be a protective factor against burnout and its negative health consequences. This study aims to investigate the glucose and insulin levels related to physical activity level in individuals with stress related burnout, by assessing these metabolic markers in response to a standard oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT).

Methods: 

Altogether, 38 individuals with burnout (13 men and 25 women) in the age 24–55 were included in the study. The burnout cases were divided into three groups based on self-reported physical activity level.

Results: 

The burnout cases who reported that they were sedentary exhibited significantly higher insulin levels during the OGTT compared to burnout cases reporting that they were physically active to any degree. This relationship was independent of severity of symptoms of burnout and depression.

Conclusions: 

The observed higher insulin levels in the sedentary burnout cases indicate an increased diabetes risk in these individuals and point at an important reason for physical activity being included in the treatment regimen for this patient group.

This pre‑study examines the technological landscape, practical experience, and regulatory requirements related to in‑vehicle detection of alcohol‑ and drug‑impaired driving, focusing on alcohol and cannabis.  

Current detection approaches fall into five categories: physiology‑based systems (breath, sweat, biosignals), tissue spectroscopy, camera‑based driver monitoring, vehicle kinematics, and hybrid systems. No single modality today offers sufficient specificity to reliably detect alcohol or drug impairment during real driving. Physiological sensing best reflects substance presence, but integration hurdles remain; behavioural sensing (oculomotor patterns, posture, vehicle control) reveals impairment but lack specificity. Hybrid systems that combine presence‑based and behaviour‑based indicators has the greatest potential. 

Practical experience from prior intoxication studies carried out by the project partners highlighted key operational requirements. Reliable experiments depend on high staffing density, strict safety protocols, disciplined event logging, and carefully tuned alcohol dosing procedures. Recruitment is challenging and requires screening for health, medications, sleep patterns, and substance use history. Breath‑based ground truth measures require rigorous protocols, and evidential‑grade analysers are recommended in future studies. Closed‑track environments remain necessary for safety but may not fully reflect real‑world driving. Simulator extensions can complement realism. Across partners, there was strong alignment on experimental design for future alcohol studies, with growing interest in shifting focus toward cannabis impairment.

Conducting cannabis experiments in Sweden requires a full clinical‑trial application through the EU CTIS system, reviewed by both the Medical Products Agency and the Ethical Review Authority. A medically responsible investigator and a compliant drug manufacturer must be secured before submission. Additional requirements include medical screening, on‑site medical staff, blood and specimen handling procedures, and detailed documentation of the cannabis product. In addition, a separate government permit is needed because driving under drug influence is illegal even on closed tracks. Recruitment will be particularly challenging due to the illicit status of cannabis in Sweden, and the method of drug administration (vaporised, smoked, capsules, edibles) must be selected to balance safety, impairment dynamics, and sensor detectability.

Taken together, the project show that: 

• Robust detection of alcohol and drugs will likely require multi‑modal sensing and careful experimental design.
• SAFER partners already share substantial know‑how for alcohol studies, but cannabis research introduces additional legal, medical, and logistical complexities. 
• A future multi‑partner cannabis study is feasible but will require early coordination with medical investigators, compliant manufacturers, and regulators, alongside realistic timelines for approvals and recruitment. 

Binge drinking of alcohol leads to worsened driving performance the following morning, even when the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) has returned to or is close to zero. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of social drinking (BAC = 0.05%) on next-day driver fatigue and driving performance. A homogenous sample of 32 experienced male drivers drove for 35 min on rural and urban roads in a driving simulator, both the day after drinking alcohol and the day after a sober evening. The main effects on next-day performance were ambiguous, where self-assessments showed lower next-day performance and higher subjective sleepiness after drinking alcohol in the evening, whereas variability in lateral position, heart rate variability and attention showed worse next-day performance in the control condition. Overall, the effect sizes were small. The results indicate that a BAC level of 0.05% does not influence next-day performance after a full night’s sleep to any greater extent. Further studies including a placebo condition are needed to verify this result, also considering more BAC levels, long-term effects of habitual drinking, and longer driving times.

Introduction: Fatigue is prevalent among seafarers and is linked to an increased risk of accidents, as well as adverse effects on both their mental and physical health. Previous studies have identified significant differences in fatigue risk associated with varying work schedules and roster patterns. However, most research has focused on shipping, tanker, fishing, or naval vessels, leaving a gap in our understanding of how different shift schedules and weekly roster patterns affect ferry operations. In the ferry industry, shift patterns and rosters differ from those in other maritime sectors due to unique operational requirements. This study explores the relationship between roster patterns, work schedules, job roles, and fatigue among seafarers on board ferries in UK waters.

Methods: Sixty- three seafarers participated in this study during routine operations on ferry routes in and out of the UK. This exploratory study employed a mixed design, which enabled comparisons among participants with varying job roles, work schedules, and roster patterns. Over a period of approximately four weeks, each participant maintained a sleep/wake diary and wore a sleep and activity tracker to record sleep quantity, quality, and timing. In addition, daily subjective sleepiness was measured using the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale.

Conclusion: Most participants managed to have 6–8 hour of sleep per night and few suffered from chronic sleep restriction. However, a substantial proportion of work shifts was associated with high levels of fatigue. Split shifts were associated with short sleep durations and daytime sleepiness. There were relatively small differences between groups and the overall picture is that fatigue is a workplace hazard for all job roles, rosters and schedules. To mitigate the risk of sleepiness on duty, seafarers should be afforded sufficient time for sleep between work shifts and the opportunity for rest breaks during long shifts to mitigate task related fatigue. Support: The UK Department for Transport funded this research.

Driver fatigue is involved in between 15 and 30 percent of all crashes. The reasons behind this increased crash risk among fatigued drivers are numerous and not only due to sleepiness caused by lack of sleep. A clear view of the magnitude of driver fatigue is needed to understand when, how and where mitigation strategies are needed. There is also a need to understand the factors that are main contributors to driver fatigue, as well as an understanding of the effectiveness of different countermeasures. Studying the connection between driver fatigue and traffic safety is challenging for several reasons. One being the diverse nature of fatigue, others are difficulties in manipulating and measuring fatigue and individual differences between drivers.  Here, we will discuss some of the general challenges related to individual differences in sensitivity to fatigue and specific challenges related to fatigue research in the driving context.  

Actions against driver fatigue can be strategic, tactical or operational. Strategic actions are the most effective since they ensure that drivers who are at risk of developing fatigue are not seated behind the wheel. On a tactical level it is important to prevent drivers from continuing to drive when severe fatigue occurs, this could be mainly through information and warning. At an operational level it is crucial to support drivers and hence stop them from driving if they, for example, are about to leave the lane by mistake. In most countries it is illegal to drive fatigued, despite this people drive under fatigue. From a legal perspective it is a great challenge to produce evidence that a crash to some degree was caused by driver fatigue. To prosecute such a case in court and sentence drivers to punishment, clear laws and strong evidence are required, something that does not exist today. There is currently no biomarker that can be used to measure fatigue in an individual with a sensitivity of 100 percent. Furthermore, fatigue is a condition that is changeable, unlike the effects of alcohol. One way to measure fatigue can be based on factors such as time of day, number of hours slept, and number of hours awake in the last 24 hours. But since fatigue can also occur for reasons other than sleepiness, such as when the driving task has been going on for too long, there is a risk of missing situations where fatigue is a contributing factor to the accident.  In the present work various challenges and opportunities in relation to enforcement and their potential to help reduce the risk of fatigued drivers behind the wheel will be presented.  

HEIDI-projektet (Holistic and adaptivE Interface Design for human-technology Interactions), finansierat av EU:s Horizon Europe-program, har undersökt hur olika typer av människa-maskin-gränssnitt (HMI) kan förbättra trafiksäkerhet och användarupplevelse i interaktionen mellan fordon och oskyddade trafikanter.

Genom användarstudier i simulatorer och testfordon har interna (iHMI), externa (eHMI) och kooperativa gränssnitt (cHMI) utvärderats. Syftet med HEIDI:s HMI är att underlätta interaktionen mellan förare/fordon och en fotgängare som vill gå över vägen. Gränssnitten utvecklades för och utvärderades med yngre och äldre samt distraherade och uppmärksamma förare och fotgängare.

Automated shuttles provide a first look at future transportation, however, they still require on-board human operators for regulatory compliance and safety assurance. This paper examines the experiences of eight shuttle operators through two studies. The aim was to investigate their alertness throughout their working shifts. Study A used a controlled experimental methodology to compare fatigue and gaze behaviour at complex road sections during the first and last hours of one shift. Study B involved naturalistic observations over two months, examining sleep, sleepiness and stress. 

Study B found that 27% of work shifts occurred following less than six hours of sleep. However, only 1% of shifts resulted in a Karolinska Sleepiness Score of 7 or higher, suggesting that insufficient sleep was rare. Stress was also infrequently reported. Notable individual differences suggested the potential value of personalized approaches to fatigue management. Study A revealed that while overall alertness was generally adequate, gaze patterns often deviated from safe expectations. Operators paid less attention to their surroundings than would be expected (21% not looking left, 38% not looking right, 58% not looking to the rear of the vehicle, in situations where this would have been appropriate). 

The results are important for safety operators and their employers, highlighting the shared responsibility of having well-prepared and well-rested operators who are fit to effectively monitor the automated shuttle for an entire driving period. Further research is needed to develop effective strategies to maintain operators’ situational awareness over time, especially as their confidence in the vehicles’ capabilities increases.