Arkansas Trucking Association

FMCSA to Conduct Split-Sleeper Flexibility Study

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) will study hours-of-service flexibility and drivers’ ability to split sleeper berth time to determine whether splitting sleeper berth times affects highway safety.

FMCSA Chief of Research Martin Walker said the agency plans to award a contract for the study and start data collection by January 2016.

The agency is looking for 200 driver participants to undergo monitoring while the researchers vary sleeper-split rules in some ways that resemble prior hours-of-service rules.

Participant drivers’ on-road behavior will be measured by truck information system collected from fleet management systems or on-board monitoring systems to measure things like eye closure and drowsiness.

Drivers also will be given three-minute pscyhomotor vigilance tests via a smartphone app, and the results will be uploaded to researchers.

Other data will be collected to monitor driver sleep/wake histories, heart rate, respiration rate and physical activity.

The goal, says Walker, is to determine “whether added flexibility can result in reduced driver fatigue and improved alertness.”