IDENTIFYING STRESSORS IN THE WORK OF BUS DRIVERS
DOI: 10.34220/2311-8873-2025-16-25
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
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Summary
This study investigates professional stressors affecting bus drivers and their impact on safety and operational compliance. The research addresses a gap in existing literature, which often focuses on general burnout or physiological responses without detailing specific stress factors or their correlation with driver behavior. The authors posit that drivers are critical to passenger safety, yet current hiring practices for public transport companies rely on administrative and medical documents that fail to assess psychological resilience. Consequently, the study aims to identify key stressors, determine drivers' stress resistance levels, and analyze the relationship between stress resistance and the frequency of regulatory violations. The research was conducted at Bus Fleet No. 6 of the St. Petersburg State Unitary Enterprise "Passazhiravtotrans," which operates over 25 routes and employs 638 drivers. A sample of 82 drivers (12.8% of the workforce) participated in an anonymous survey via Google Forms. The methodology combined a preliminary questionnaire to identify stressors with five specialized psychological tests to assess stress resistance, including the Boyko test for unmotivated anxiety and tests by Fetisikin, Cohen, Kirsheva, and Gotwald. The study analyzed 40 potential factors, narrowing them down to 28 significant stressors. Additionally, test results were correlated with administrative records of penalties and violations incurred by each driver over the preceding two years. The findings identified 28 distinct stressors, categorized into external conditions (weather, road infrastructure, passenger behavior), operational factors (vehicle breakdowns, route changes, queues for maintenance or medical checks), and organizational pressures (fear of penalty, loss of bonus, surveillance). The most significant stressors included the possibility of losing bonuses, vehicle malfunctions, uncomfortable seating, and queues for vehicle washing. Drivers were classified into three groups based on stress resistance: highly resistant (24.4%), moderately resistant (47.6%), and low resistance (28.0%). The study confirmed a strong negative correlation between stress resistance and violations. Drivers with low stress resistance accounted for 50% of those with frequent violations, whereas only 27% of frequent violators exhibited high stress resistance. Furthermore, highly stress-resistant drivers assigned lower stress scores to irritants compared to their less resistant counterparts. The significance of this work lies in its validation of stress resistance as a predictor of driver compliance and safety. The authors conclude that implementing psychological testing during the hiring process could help organizations mitigate risks associated with regulatory violations and property damage. Practical recommendations include optimizing operational workflows to reduce queues, upgrading aging vehicle fleets to minimize breakdown-related stress, and ensuring ergonomic cabin designs. The study also highlights the dual nature of financial penalties: while effective for enforcing safety protocols, excessive strictness may demotivate staff. Ultimately, the research provides a framework for improving driver well-being and public transport safety through targeted psychological and operational interventions.
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-19 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.
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- Empirical Findings: physiological data