Mental Workload and its Relation with Fatigue among Urban Bus Drivers
DOI: 10.21859/johe-04018
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
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Summary
This study investigates the relationship between mental workload and fatigue among urban bus drivers, addressing the significant public health concern of traffic accidents, which are a leading cause of mortality and injury globally. The research was motivated by the recognition that human factors, particularly cognitive errors and unsafe behaviors stemming from high mental workload and fatigue, are primary contributors to traffic violations and accidents. The specific objective was to evaluate the status of mental workload and its correlation with perceived fatigue in professional urban bus drivers. The study employed a descriptive-analytical, cross-sectional design involving 104 professional urban bus drivers in Iran. Data were collected using self-report questionnaires, including the validated Persian version of the NASA-TLX scale to assess mental workload across six dimensions (mental demand, physical demand, temporal demand, performance, effort, and frustration) and the Samn-Perelli scale to measure overall fatigue. Additional tools assessed physical and mental fatigue specifically. Demographic and occupational variables, such as age, work experience, shift type, smoking status, and overtime hours, were also recorded. Statistical analyses included descriptive statistics, Spearman and Pearson correlation tests, and multiple linear regression to control for confounding variables. The results indicated that 82% of drivers reported some degree of fatigue, with the majority (34.7%) describing it as moderate. Overall mental workload showed the strongest correlation with physical workload ($r=0.73$), followed by mental demand ($r=0.68$) and temporal demand ($r=0.08$). Perceived overall fatigue was most strongly correlated with frustration level ($r=0.42$), temporal demand ($r=0.24$), and mental demand ($r=0.21$). Regression analyses revealed that overall fatigue was significantly influenced by physical fatigue more than mental fatigue. Furthermore, physical fatigue was significantly associated with work experience, commute distance, smoking, route type, and overtime hours. Mental fatigue was significantly associated with smoking and route type. Smoking and overtime emerged as significant mediating variables in the relationship between workload and fatigue. The study concludes that physical workload, mental demand, and temporal pressure are the most critical determinants of overall workload and fatigue among urban bus drivers. The findings suggest that interventions should not only focus on reducing cognitive load but also address physical ergonomic factors and lifestyle habits. The authors recommend comprehensive intervention programs including job rotation, optimized work-rest scheduling, reduction of overtime, and smoking cessation initiatives to effectively mitigate fatigue and improve driver safety and performance.
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-08-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| enrich | success | semantic_scholar | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-nvidia | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-08-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 10 | 2026-08-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-08-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-nvidia on 2026-08-10; verification: verified.
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Information type
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- Empirical Findings: physiological data, self report data
- Theoretical Contribution: theory or model