The SleepiEST project will involve monitoring shift workers in the police who drive either as part of their work, or when commuting – with the data being used to estimate and predict motorists’ fatigue levels.
The project, which includes input from National Police Wellbeing Service, will result in a publicly available online fatigue management tool.
Professor John Groeger and Dr Fran Pilkington-Cheney, psychologists and sleep experts from NTU’s School of Social Sciences, are leading the project.
Dr Pilkington-Cheney said: “Due to various shift patterns and circadian related factors, sleepiness is prevalent within shift working populations, and has the potential to be particularly dangerous when safety critical tasks are involved.
“Our research aims to explore the risk of sleepiness when driving, both during shifts, but also before and after shifts, as commuting can often be overlooked in terms of risk.”
Data collection will occur in three phases. Firstly, the project team will conduct a large, nationwide survey of serving officers and police employees to collect information on sleep, fatigue, shift patterns and driving behaviour.
The team will then collect information from officers across several working weeks, in a two-week diary study and online vigilance assessment, before combining this with other data such as on-board driving telematics, to model the effects of fatigue and sleep patterns.
Professor Groeger, founder of NTU’s Sleep Well Science consultancy, said: “Our approach is going to be a little different, because, we will gather the data, develop and test the tool, and assess whether the results are meaningful and useful, all within the same complex work setting.
“The national spread and diversity of the police workforce, officers and other employees, will enable us to incorporate the effects of a broad range of individual differences into the underlying model.”
Dr Yvonne Taylor, the sleep and fatigue lead for the National Police Wellbeing Service, is also working on the project.
Dr Taylor said: “The National Police Wellbeing Service exists to provide support and guidance to all police forces, to improve and build upon wellbeing. Previous academic research, along with our own annual surveys have highlighted that sleepiness and fatigue are an issue for police officers and staff.
“There is still much to do in this area, particularly furthering knowledge around driver fatigue in this group of shift workers.
“Being part of the SleepiEST team will allow us to continue this vital work and ultimately improve safety and wellbeing for all those within policing.”