Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/893962
October 2017 | Overdrive | 27 One method of fatigue monitoring involves measur- ing a driver's head motion without using a camera. Maven Machines' Co-Pilot headset "detects if a driver is looking forward through the wind- shield or looking up or down or sideways," says Avi Geller, CEO. The key measurement is mir- ror checks, which should occur every five to eight seconds, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Geller says. "As people get more fatigued, their mirror check rate decreases." The headset also detects head bobs and jerk-up motions, signs of microsleep. The head- set also detects head move- ment that suggests distraction, such as looking down to read a phone screen. The Maven system integrates head motion readings with data from other sources such as weather, traffic and the truck's electronic control module. Using Maven headsets for the last year, in combination with safety training based on a road-facing camera system, enabled Conard Logistics to go a year without accidents until Sept. 1, says co-owner James Griffith. The 35- to 40-truck fleet is based just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. "I think it's a really up-and- coming system that's going to be real popular," Griffith says. "We test anything if we think it's going to help with our safety." His drivers have not com- plained about the system and like its ease of use, he says. The current Maven device Conard drivers use, an earpiece that replaces the full headset, is an improvement, he says. Geller says Maven has been engaged with a partner, which he declined to name, to pos- sibly integrate road-facing cam- eras to increase the system's accuracy. There's also potential for integrating performance data other than camera input. Link- ing hard-braking events with fatigue indicators can yield highly accurate results for sub- sequent training intervention, Geller says. In 2015, the company signed PGT Trucking, based in Monaca, Pennsylvania, as its first U.S. trucking fleet customer. More than 15 trucking fleets now are testing the Maven system, Geller says. "The scientific concept is valid," says company driver Bob Stanton, who has tested the system. His involvement with sleep apnea problems has led to further involvement with fatigue specialists. "It's just a matter of needing better testing," Stanton says. When he uses lively music to fight fatigue, he says he tends to bounce in his seat, but the system interprets the motion as a mirror check. Stanton's experience isn't re- ally misleading in that "he is be- ing active, not microsleeping," Geller says. "He is trying to keep himself alert and focused," sort of "tricking the system to detect the right thing." Some advantages of the system are that's it's relatively inexpensive and "it's already incorporated into a headset people use," he says. The Blue- tooth headset has "HD quality sound," the company says. Maven's approach is prefer- able to driver-facing cameras because they are "a very strong invasion of privacy," Geller says. "We hear it all the time, 'The truck is my home. I live there. You want me to put a camera in my home. It's not a good quality of life. It's disrespectful.' " USING YOUR HEAD: MAVEN'S CO-PILOT the driver's word that they are tired and need to take a nap before continuing on? My God, the more technology, the stron- ger the 'stupid' grows in this industry." The privacy concern related to driver- facing cameras isn't the only problem in these emerging technologies. One is that planning and continually adjusting driv- ers' schedules to consider all the predic- tive and evolving real-time data supplied by these systems could seriously challenge a fleet's ability to manage its logistics and maintain on-time deliveries. That poses a "major problem" indus- trywide, says John Hopkins, a company driver for XPO Logistics. "Can you see Fed Ex, XPO or UPS shutting down when it has to be there overnight? … I suspect we'll just turn a blind eye for years to come. The industry and govern- ment doesn't really want to know." Another problem is that even when a system delivers an accurate reading that a driver is fatigued, simply delivering a warning doesn't fully address the need to get the driver off the highway quickly for rest, Hanowski says. That's one of "a lot of pitfalls on the way" toward develop- ing a fully accurate and practical system. Nevertheless, he says, "there's a lot going on in this area," including some leading technologies that are collaborating with his center. At least two of the fatigue wear- ables depend largely on actigraphy, a decades-old science. Typically worn like a wristwatch, an actigraph measures body movement to assess sleep quantity Maven's system interprets head motions, particularly the rate of mirror checks, as indicators of distraction or microsleeps. Those numbers and other data are used to produce alertness scores. The map shows each point where a left or right mirror check was made. Optalert's system is based on an LED sensor located inside eyeglasses that tracks eyelid movements to determine a drowsiness score. That information is part of Optalert's Individual Risk Indicator System, which supervisors see. The system "measures the risk of performance failure, which may occur even before the subject has a microsleep," says the Optalert website. The company declined to be interviewed for this story.