Assessing Lifecycle and Human Costs of Bus Operator Workstation Design and Components

The objective of this research is to assess bus operator workstation technologies that improve bus operator health and well-being and reduce external risk. This project will (1) develop and (2) demonstrate a user-friendly toolkit for evaluating equipment within the bus operator workstation. The research will supplement the work of TCRP Report 25 and TCRP Report 185, covering progress in the engineering of seats, steering, pedals, and controls where significant advances have been shown to reduce injuries, reduce costs, and improve safety performance. The toolkit will allow a user to (1) assess bus operator workstation options available and (2) calculate the effects of those options on driver safety and health, the effective work tenure of drivers, crash rates (e.g., visual obstructions such as pillar design and mirror placement), and costs over the lifetime of equipment (i.e., lifecycle costs). Research should consider the following: (1) Relative health and turnover rate of current bus operator populations (compared with other occupations); (2) Features of the workstation that would most improve health, well-being, and performance, considering the attributes of the bus operator population (e.g., control efforts such as foot-pounds of effort for turning can be tuned to prevent the occurrence of new injuries and minimize aggravation of existing injuries); (3) Evaluation of components in isolation and in the context of the workstation envelope; (4) Performance implications to the safe and efficient operation of the vehicle (e.g., dwell time and customer service implications); (5) Effective international practices; (6) Standards (and other processes for evaluating technologies) that could be framed as models for agencies examining future evolutions of systems; and  (7) Applicability and maturity of information on key standards (e.g., benchmarks for control efforts of workstation hardware) and recommendations for follow-up research to address priority areas. An interim report at the end of Phase I should identify demonstration options for working prototype installations that can be carried out with available project funding and those requiring additional resources.  In Phase II, it is anticipated that one or more demonstrations applying the draft toolkit would take place at the APTA Bus & Paratransit Conference or like events.

• Record URL:
  http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=4294

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $250000
• Contract Numbers:

  Project G-17

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Transit Cooperative Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC    20001

  Federal Transit Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Parker, Stephan

• Performing Organizations:

  Pennsylvania State University, University Park

  Pennsylvania Transportation and Traffic Safety Center
  University Park, PA  United States  16802
• Principal Investigators:

  Parkinson, Matthew

• Start Date: 20180717
• Expected Completion Date: 20230331
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• Source Data: RiP Project 41373

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bus drivers; Costs; Evaluation and assessment; Health; Life cycle costing; Occupational safety; Pedals; Seats; Steering systems; Vehicle safety; Work area
• Subject Areas: Design; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01622197
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project G-17
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: Jan 7 2017 1:30PM