The Driving Research Unit
has found that the advanced research into aviation safety
can offer a valuable insight into road safety, too
Arriva Bus Simulato
During World War II, it was research into pilot error that first
identified the importance of human factors in accidents, leading
to major changes in cockpit design, pilot selection and pilot training.
As a result of this research, air transport is the safest form of
travel based on the number of fatalities per billion km travelled.
The Human Factors and Air Transport Department at Cranfield University
is a world leader in this field, conducting research into aviation
safety for over two decades. There has also been a longstanding
history of commercially-funded research into road safety that is
continuing with the appointment of Dr Lisa Dorn, Director of the
Driving Research Unit (DRU) in 2001.
Many of the issues for aviation safety are directly transferable
to driver safety. For example, a major research programme with the
DRU in collaboration with Arriva Passenger Services Ltd has led
to the development of Europe’s first bus simulator for driver
training (see Figure 1), drawing on expertise at Cranfield University
in the design of flight simulators.
Some believe that there is little that can be done about human error,
assuming that accidents are somehow inevitable. Human Factors researchers,
particularly in the aviation field, would disagree. To compensate
for the “inevitability” of road accidents, engineers
build the human factor into vehicle design to improve survivability
and for the road environment to improve readable and thereby facilitate
more effective information processing and reduce the chance of driver
errors occurring in the first place. While vehicle design and road
environments have largely taken the human factor into account, there
has been comparatively little attention paid to the potential for
driver training to reduce error at source.
There has, in fact, been hardly any research into driver training.
In contrast, research on pilot training has almost exclusively focused
on avoiding or reducing human error to improve safety. The DRU is
particularly focused on lessons to be learned from aviation to inform
the development of driver training.
Organisational risk of accidents
“Many of the issues for
aviation safety are directly transferable to driver
safety”
A further major concern for the DRU is the problem of work-related
road risk. There are several facets that need to be taken into consideration
in any attempt to improve road safety within organisations. The
model below (see Figure 2) is based on the premise that the outcomes
(turnover, accidents and absence behaviour) are dependent on a combination
of employee and work environmental factors. The model shows how
the relational style between the driver and their immediate supervisor
impacts on the values the driver brings to the driving task.
These values are an embodiment of the organisational culture and
climate that are known to influence behaviour at work. The work
environment is a source of stress and fatigue that can further influence
a driver’s values. It is our belief that any intervention
programme affects the outcomes by mediating this process. The foci
of any intervention at the organisational level should therefore
take into account individual and group differences in driving behaviour
and the organisational impact on safety behaviour.
The First International Conference on Driver
Behaviour and Training
Other initiatives from the DRU include the hosting of the First
International Conference on Driver Behaviour and Training at Stratford-upon-Avon
on November 10 to 12, 2003. The focus for the conference is to consider
that driver training needs to be adapted to take into account driver
characteristics, goals and motivations to raise awareness of how
these may contribute to unsafe driving behaviour.
Road safety researchers and professionals will be encouraged to
consider the kinds of methods that are effective in teaching higher-level
skills and to define new approaches to driver training methodology
based on many years of empirical research from driver behaviour
researchers (see advert opposite for further information).
“Managing Human Factors in Driving”
– Continuing Professional Development in Road Safety
“There has been comparitively
little attention paid to the potential of driver training
to reduce error”
To help organisations with increasing accident costs, the DRU has
produced a new short course to instruct road safety personnel in
managing human factors in driving. The course is at the forefront
of exploring the latest developments and issues for organisations
which are concerned about their road risk. This is the first time
that a UK university has designed an on-going professional development
course specifically aimed at tackling the problem of human factors
in road accidents.
It offers a recognised Cranfield University Certificate for Continuing
Professional Development with a view to introducing delegates to
basic psychological principles of driver error and how to ameliorate
its effects within their organisation (see advert for further information).
