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Research Framework for Studying Transit Bus Driver Distraction in the Commonwealth of Virginia

Transit ridership has increased nationally during the past ten years. Higher ridership generally results in higher distraction due to passenger related sources. Besides, this ridership growth in transit services, proliferation of personal electronic control and communication gadgets are causing more distractions for the drivers. Research on transit bus driver distraction is limited although transit buses account for more transit related injuries due to larger number of passengers. In the case of passenger vehicles, most of the distraction is within the control of the driver. However for transit vehicles, some distractions are caused by factors beyond the driver’s control such as operating equipment or attending to passengers. The accident reports filed by transit bus drivers rarely document distraction as the cause of accidents. Due to lack of reporting distractions by transit drivers, the associated risks and impact on performance is not well understood and no established research framework is available to study driver distractions. This paper proposes a modular research framework for conducting a driver distraction study that includes data collection, analysis, validating, and interpreting results of the study. The objective is to provide a transit agency in the Commonwealth of Virginia with a set of standardized methodologies for studying transit bus driver distraction from data collection to result interpretation and application. The proposed framework consists of four modules—Data Collection, Analysis, Validation and Result Interpretation. Each module utilizes tools for studying distraction over a wide range of cost and time intervals whereby an agency may choose one or more modules to suit their study requirements. These modules are based on an earlier study conducted in the Commonwealth of Virginia whose results are reproduced in this paper for purposes of illustrating the type of outputs obtainable from the framework.

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Features: Figures; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: pp 50-62
  • Monograph Title: Proceedings of 1st National Conference on Intermodal Transportation: Problems, Practices, and Policies

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01495257
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Oct 9 2013 12:21PM