SLEEP, FATIGUE AND HOURS OF WORK OF FRENCH TRAIN DRIVERS

Hours of work of train drivers are known to be likely to induce fatigue that may impact safety and health. In 2007, the SNCF initiated a comprehensive research on fatigue and sleep of train drivers. The research covers the various operations: high speed, national, regional, freights and maneuver trains. The objective is to evaluate the impact of these hours of work and to figure out how fatigue could be prevented at different levels of the organization from the scheduling process to the operations. The research covers 4 steps: (1) a chronobiological evaluation of specific schedules including the use of biomathematical models, (2) the analysis from existing reporting data on health and occupational accidents as well as interviews of managers and occupational medical doctor of the drivers (3) a survey by questionnaire to investigate the impacts of hours of work on fatigue, health and social life (4) the measurement of sleep, subjective sleepiness, physiological alertness and observation data on a sample of 25 train drivers on 42 trips. Results are discussed regarding their impact on the scheduling process, in the light of the recent progress in Fatigue Risk Management Systems.