Improving Quality of Life of Our Urban Bus Drivers with Inexpensive Tech
The purpose of this article is to raise awareness to the current risks and statistics of urban bus drivers and to propose the use of inexpensive health monitoring equipment to notify and flag potential at risk employees of dangerous blood pressure and stress levels induced in the high demand occupation. The following article will include statements on
Health risks of current urban bus drivers
A proposed, inexpensive solution
Implementation and integration of the new system
Lets start with a little history . . .
Christopher MacKechnie, a former ten-year part time bus driver published an article on the improving the health of bus drivers. In his article he makes a claim based on a study done by the Labor Office in Geneva, Switzerland that between 1974 and 1977 only 7% of bus drivers retired at the expected age where as 90% of drivers have quit their jobs due to health reasons. Even though that was forty years ago where comfort and technology in buses where not made to tailor to the health benefits of urban bus drivers, a current LA bus driver study done by the Center of Social Epidemiology (CSE) stated that currently
“Professional drivers, considered as employees who work more than 30 hours behind a wheel, are still at the highest risk of any occupation for hypertension, high blood pressure and ischemic heart disease.” — CSE
Our city bus drivers are putting their life on the line to get their passengers from point A to point B and there is no current technique of tracking the health and safety of these women and men under those conditions.
Fortunately, there is a solution to monitoring the health of urban bus drivers. As we all know by now, smart watches offer a variety of unique features boasting specific capabilities of monitoring heart rates, blood pressure, sweat levels and body temperatures. These capabilities allow for early detection of health risks and can safely warn bus drivers when it is time to take necessary actions to avoid permanent affects of their demanding occupation which can in turn lead to
- longer careers
- higher retention rates of employees
- better over all employee satisfaction
- better customer service
In order to understand the necessity of monitoring the health of our urban bus drivers, a thorough understanding of the general life of a bus driver must be observed to fully attempt to grasp the reality of the stresses and demands of these drivers.
An urban bus driver’s day generally starts before normal operating hours around 2–3 am so that they are able to keep on track with the daily schedule. Before a bus drivers even start their routes they will already have faced multiple opportunities for high stress scenarios including but not limited to
- arriving at the bus yard during inconvenient times, often with out the use of public transportation as it is outside of normal operating hours
- meeting with a daily route analyst and general manager to receive the daily schedule, study detours, conduct performance reviews and negotiate future shifts
- conduct a detailed safety inspection of their bus, being reliable for any miss judgments made in an average ten-minute time slot. This all after meeting with the route analyst and general manager right before a hustled departure
- exiting the bus lot on time during a period when multiple large buses are leaving through a single gated entrance and exit
After the driver is en route she or he is then responsible of many other responsibilities that can induce high stress such as
- Arriving and departing at bus terminals on time while maneuvering intense morning and evening traffic cycles in the city
- Relying on peripheral vision in order to observe both directly in front, behind and inside of bus to maintain a safe environment for both passengers and pedestrians.
- Often times straining muscles to maintain brake pressure and torque on the steering wheel for the large transport vehicle during up hill and down hill movement
- Dealing with passengers who often enter bus already in mal composure due to long waiting times
To combat these occupational stress inducers bus drivers generally have a 20-minute break for every two hours behind the wheel in order to stretch their legs, return blood flow and decompress. These breaks are often extremely crucial for the safety of the bus drivers as they also ensure that the bus driver is able to complete their shift with less acute aches and pains naturally caused by the vibrations of the bus.
Unfortunately, due to extremely tight scheduling and often delayed shift switches between drivers, these breaks tend to be shortened down by drivers sometimes even completely cut out in order to stay on track.
Laboratory and field studies, as reported by CSE, show that drivers that cope silently and are able to hide the effects of maneuvering and working such dangerous and high stress occupations through experience display shockingly the most dramatic blood pressure and electrocardiographic responses to the stimulation of being an urban bus driver.
With all the information out in the world and our recent technological advancenments a potential solution has risen up.
Self regulating health monitoring wrist bands.
Well duh. Aren’t there already things called smart watches out there? Of course there is! Currently these wrist bands produced by Apple and Samsung carry the capabilities to read and monitor heart rate, sweat levels, body temperature and blood pressure. These four immediate readings can give early warning signs of hypertension, stress, heart failure and illness and can be invaluable for a bus driver who can easily look over their own health in order to complete their task at hand.
Unfortunately, the price of these smart watches are incredibly high, ranging from $500 to $1200 and would be an immense undertaking for a public transportation agency like SEPTA (South East Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) to implement across all of it’s transportation branches in the South Eastern Pennsylvania transportation system at the strictly regulated and often low budget they have annually. Thus, an inexpensive solution must be made.
Introducing the Paper Watch.
The ‘Paper Watch’, as is its only current form of identification, is currently under research and development at the KAUST (Abdullah University of Science and Technology) and boasts all the capabilities of the Apple Smart Watch and the Samsung Gear’s health monitoring systems with in a %5 error rating at a humble $25 price tag.
The lead developer of the watch, Muhammad Mustafa Hussain who is an electrical engineer at KAUST, states in an article posted by IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) that the watch was originally developed to help residents of third world countries get access to top of the line telemedicine technology in locations where hospital staff would have a difficult time reaching with contemporary means of travel.
The reason that the watch is inexpensive is due to the fact that it is made of very inexpensive house hold materials including sponges, silver ink, inexpensive micro chips and pressure sensors. All these components are encased in a 3D printed case that sits comfortably around the wrist. The data acquisition is transmitted via blue tooth to either a handheld device like a cell phone or a computer and logged in as an entry.
Integration of the ‘Paper Watch’ once finalized and released for public consumption would be extremely easy. The participation of the monitoring would be strictly voluntary but could yield results as to the true stress and difficulties that buss drivers face through mapping of their daily body cycles. With these results SEPTA can implement better scheduling time frames which could include better planned out breaks for bus drivers, improved spread of shift times and personalized break patterns for each driver as to accommodate their own health needs.
This system would enable agencies like SEPTA to give experienced drivers who seldom complain about chronic stress an ability to recover and heal when over worked, extending their careers in the future and potentially causing better job retention rates.
There are potentially many solutions of using today’s cheap, highly developed technology to help improve the life of our urban transpo heros and all that matters is that we connect the dots. Here is a video sponsored by KAUST that gives you a good understanding of what the developed concept of the paper watch looks like!
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REFERENCES
Hsu, J. (2017, January 09). ‘Paper Watch’ Aims to Democratize Fitness Trackers. Retrieved February 27, 2017, from http://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/diagnostics/paper-watch-aims-to-democratize-personal-health-monitoring?utm_campaign=TechAlert_02-02-17&utm_source=Tech%2BAlert&bt_alias=eyJ1c2VySWQiOiAiZjRmMWI3YzItZWEwYi00ZTQwLTg1YTktYzRkMzcxYWM2MzMyIn0%3D&utm_medium=Email
MacKechnie, C. (2016, January 10). Four Ways to Improve Bus Driver Health. Retrieved February 27, 2017, from http://publictransport.about.com/od/Transit_Employment/a/Bus-Driver-Health.htm
Wigger, E. (2015, January 31). A Day in the Life of a Bus Driver. Retrieved February 27, 2017, from http://unhealthywork.org/la-bus-driver-study/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-bus-driver/