How do long combination vehicles perform in real traffic? A study using Naturalistic Driving Data.

This paper evaluates the performance of two different types of long combination vehicles (A-double and DuoCAT) using naturalistic driving data across four scenarios: lane changes, manoeuvring through roundabouts, turning in intersections, and negotiating tight curves. Four different performance-based standards measures are used to assess the stability and tracking performance of the vehicles: rearward amplification, high-speed transient offtracking, low-speed swept path, and high-speed steady-state offtracking. Also, the steering reversal rate metric is employed to estimate the cognitive workload of the drivers in low-speed scenarios.

My Way to School Through a Camera Lens: Involving Children to Inform a Policy Recommendation on Active School Travel.

Active school travel (AST) is an effective approach for increasing children's physical activity and independent mobility, but policy supporting AST is lacking. This study aims to explore children's experiences of AST to inform a policy recommendation. Photovoice methodology with a qualitative approach was applied, with children taking pictures on their way to school.

Injury risk functions for the four primary knee ligaments.

The purpose of this study was to develop injury risk functions (IRFs) for the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments (ACL and PCL, respectively) and the medial and lateral collateral ligaments (MCL and LCL, respectively) in the knee joint. The IRFs were based on post-mortem human subjects (PMHSs). Available specimen-specific failure strains were supplemented with statistically generated failure strains (virtual values) to accommodate for unprovided detailed experimental data in the literature.

Train Drivers' Work Related Stress and Job Satisfaction.

Objectives: This study investigated which work-related stressors are rated highest by train drivers and which are strongest correlated with consideration to change profession.

Methods: In a questionnaire, a total of 251 Swedish train drivers rated 17 work-related stressors, to which extent they had considered quitting their profession, and if they had experienced a PUT (person under train) accident.

Results: PUTs (when experienced) and irregular work hours are the main stressors, but the strongest predictors of consideration to change profession are those that are encountered often, and last over time (eg, irregular work hours, r = 0.

Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies among public transport workers in Sweden.

Introduction: Public transportation is an essential societal function in crisis situations like the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Bus drivers and other public transport workers are essential workers that need to keep working despite the risk of contagion. The SARS-CoV-2 virus may pose an occupational health risk to public transport workers and especially to bus drivers as they interact with passengers in a confined area.

Medical impairment and road traffic crashes among older drivers in Sweden - A national, population-based, case-control study.

Background: Several medical conditions are known to impair sensory, cognitive and motor functions and are associated with road traffic crashes (RTC). For the drivers of today, we lack updated knowledge on how driving-impairing conditions are associated with RTCs, across all driving-impairing conditions in a given population. We aim to determine this among older drivers in Sweden.

Injury crashes and the relationship with disease causing excessive daytime sleepiness.

Objective: The objective of this study was to understand the relationship between some of the most common diseases that are known to contribute to excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) and traffic injury crashes. Specific focus was on the relationship between disease and crash type (single-vehicle or multiple-vehicle crash) and between disease and injury severity.

Methods: This registry-based study considered all passenger car drivers involved in a crash in Sweden between 2011 and 2016 who were 40 years or older at the time of the crash ( = 54,090).

A Frontal Neuropsychological Profile in Fitness to Drive.

Traffic accidents are a global concern due to the elevated mortality rates of both drivers and pedestrians. The World Health Organization declared 2011-2020 as the Decade of Action for Road Safety, endorsing initiatives to reduce traffic-related deaths. Yet, despite these incentives, fatal accidents still occur.

Truck drivers' interaction with cyclists in right-turn situations.

One of the more hazardous situations for a bicyclist is to go straight on in an intersection where a motor vehicle is turning right, and especially so when heavy vehicles are involved. The aim of this study was to investigate truck drivers' speed choice, gaze behaviour and interaction strategies in relation to vulnerable road users (VRU) when turning right in signalised and non-signalised intersections. Truck drivers experienced (n = 14) or inexperienced (n = 15) with urban traffic drove a 15 km long test route in an urban environment.

"The car is my extra legs" - Experiences of outdoor mobility amongst immigrants in Sweden with late effects of polio.

Background: The aim of the study was to describe the experience of outdoor mobility among immigrants with late effects of polio living in Sweden. There is a need to understand more about this young group of persons since they often have problems with mobility and gait, but they may also face participation restrictions due to issues associated with integration into a new community and culture.

Method: A total of 14 young immigrants with late effects of polio participated and were interviewed individually.

Growth factors and neurotrophins in patients with stress-related exhaustion disorder.

Growth factors, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and epidermal growth factor (EGF), and neurotrophic factors, including brain-derived neurotophic factor (BDNF), have attracted attention in studies of the biological effects of long-term stress exposure due to their neuroprotective roles. This study investigated whether circulating levels of EGF, VEGF and BDNF were altered in individuals with stress-related exhaustion disorder. Forty patients diagnosed with exhaustion disorder and 40 healthy subjects (50% women) provided fasting blood samples for analysis of EGF, VEGF, and BDNF in plasma.

Attentional Demand as a Function of Contextual Factors in Different Traffic Scenarios.

Objective: To assess the attentional demand of different contextual factors in driving.

Background: The attentional demand on the driver varies with the situation. One approach for estimating the attentional demand, via spare capacity, is to use visual occlusion.

Deriving heart rate variability indices from cardiac monitoring-An indicator of driver sleepiness.

Driver fatigue is considered to be a major contributor to road traffic crashes. Cardiac monitoring and heart rate variability (HRV) analysis is a candidate method for early and accurate detection of driver sleepiness. This study has 2 objectives: to evaluate the (1) suitability of different preprocessing strategies for detecting and removing outlier heartbeats and spectral transformation of HRV signals and their impact of driver sleepiness assessment and (2) relation between common HRV indices and subjective sleepiness reported by a large number of drivers in real driving situations, for the first time.

Drink drivers' views of a voluntary alcohol interlock programme for drink driving offenders in Sweden.

A permanent alcohol interlock programme was introduced in Sweden in 2012. The programme is voluntary and allows drink driving offenders to keep their driving licenses if they install alcohol interlocks in their vehicles. The duration of the programme is one or two years, depending on the severity of the drink driving offence.

A toolbox for automated driving on the STISIM driving simulator.

Driving simulators have been used since the beginning of the 1930s to assist researchers in assessing driver behaviour without putting the driver in harm's way. The current manuscript describes the implementation of a toolbox for automated driving research on the widely used STISIM platform. The toolbox presented in this manuscript allows researchers to conduct flexible research into automated driving, enabling independent use of longitudinal control, and a combination of longitudinal and lateral control, and is available as an open source download through GitHub.

Comparison of outlier heartbeat identification and spectral transformation strategies for deriving heart rate variability indices for drivers at different stages of sleepiness.

Objective: Appropriate preprocessing for detecting and removing outlier heartbeats and spectral transformation is essential for deriving heart rate variability (HRV) indices from cardiac monitoring data with high accuracy. The objective of this study is to evaluate agreement between standard preprocessing methods for cardiac monitoring data used to detect outlier heartbeats and perform spectral transformation, in relation to estimating HRV indices for drivers at different stages of sleepiness.

Methods: The study analyzed more than 3,500 5-min driving epochs from 76 drivers on a public motorway in Sweden.

Comparing motor-vehicle crash risk of EU and US vehicles.

Objective: This study examined the hypotheses that passenger vehicles meeting European Union (EU) safety standards have similar crashworthiness to United States (US) -regulated vehicles in the US driving environment, and vice versa.

Methods: The first step involved identifying appropriate databases of US and EU crashes that include in-depth crash information, such as estimation of crash severity using Delta-V and injury outcome based on medical records. The next step was to harmonize variable definitions and sampling criteria so that the EU data could be combined and compared to the US data using the same or equivalent parameters.

The effect of an active steering system on city bus drivers' muscle activity.

City bus drivers spend hours driving under time pressure, in congested traffic and in a monotonous sitting position. This leads to unhealthy working conditions, especially in terms of physical and psychological stress. The aim of this study is to investigate whether an active steering system can alleviate the musculoskeletal stress involved in manoeuvring a bus.

Estimating the relative cost of track damage mechanisms: combining economic and engineering approaches.

This paper proposes a new, two-stage methodology to estimate the relative marginal cost of different types of vehicles running on the rail infrastructure. This information is important particularly where the infrastructure managers wish to differentiate the track access charges by vehicle type for the purpose of incentivizing the development and use of more track-friendly vehicles. EU legislation requires that the European infrastructure managers set the access charges based on the incremental (marginal) cost of the running trains on their networks.

Changes in speed distribution: Applying aggregated safety effect models to individual vehicle speeds.

This study investigated the effect of applying two aggregated models (the Power model and the Exponential model) to individual vehicle speeds instead of mean speeds. This is of particular interest when the measure introduced affects different parts of the speed distribution differently. The aim was to examine how the estimated overall risk was affected when assuming the models are valid on an individual vehicle level.

Evaluation of methods for the assessment of attention while driving.

The ability to assess the current attentional state of the driver is important for many aspects of driving, not least in the field of partial automation for transfer of control between vehicle and driver. Knowledge about the driver's attentional state is also necessary for the assessment of the effects of additional tasks on attention. The objective of this paper is to evaluate different methods that can be used to assess attention, first theoretically, and then empirically in a controlled field study and in the laboratory.

Local changes in the wake electroencephalogram precedes lane departures.

The objective of this exploratory study is to investigate if lane departures are associated with local sleep, measured via source-localized electroencephalography (EEG) theta power in the 5-9 Hz frequency range. Thirty participants drove in an advanced driving simulator, resulting in 135 lane departures at high levels of self-reported sleepiness. These lane departures were compared to matching non-departures at the same sleepiness level within the same individual.

Changes in glance behaviour when using a visual eco-driving system - A field study.

While in-vehicle eco-driving support systems have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save fuel, they may also distract drivers, especially if the system makes use of a visual interface. The objective of this study is to investigate the visual behaviour of drivers interacting with such a system, implemented on a five-inch screen mounted above the middle console. Ten drivers participated in a real-world, on-road driving study where they drove a route nine times (2 pre-baseline drives, 5 treatment drives, 2 post-baseline drives).

Short-Term Responses in Maximum Quantum Yield of PSII (Fv/Fm) to ex situ Temperature Treatment of Populations of Bryophytes Originating from Different Sites in Hokkaido, Northern Japan.

There is limited knowledge available on the thermal acclimation processes for bryophytes, especially when considering variation between populations or sites. This study investigated whether short-term ex situ thermal acclimation of different populations showed patterns of site dependency and whether the maximum quantum yield of PSII (Fv/Fm) could be used as an indicator of adaptation or temperature stress in two bryophyte species: Pleurozium schreberi (Willd. ex Brid.