Contributos da Ergonomia para o Sector da Construção Civil

Em Janeiro de 2010 saiu na revista Segurança um artigo do meu colega Hugo Aguiar intitulado: "Contributos da Ergonomia para o Sector da Construção Civil".

Vale a pena ler.

Intelligent Speed Adaptation - Part 3 - effects of its use

In general, ISA system had positive effects, translated into a reduction in average speeds, between 0,9 and 8 km/h, in speed variance and speed violations. The size of these reductions depended on the type of ISA, with more limiting ISA types being more effective. There was no consensus about the areas where the effects on speed were greater.

When the ISA engagement was voluntary, the drivers tended to disengage it in lower speed limit zones, in part because in this context mutable variables were more common. In the short-term, the system was engaged about half of the time. In the long-term it was observed that there was an upward trend in overriding behaviour, at least until 3000km or three years of system exposure.

Other positive effects of ISA use were identified as well as collateral effects such as, compensation behaviour, diminished attention and over confidence.

Considering emotional state, the participants in the trials reported irritation and annoyance, mainly with mandatory systems. There was also an increase in safety perception.

No agreement was achieved in what concerns workload and travel time questions.

There are optimistic results on acceptance and acceptability of ISA, mainly of the advisory systems. Therefore, it seems that the higher the openness of the ISA, the higher the likelihood of being accepted by the drivers.

There is a great advantage in deploying ISA as the predicted decrease in injury accidents ranged between 10% and 36% and in fatal accidents between 18% and 59%. There is also evidence on the reduction of fuel consumption.

Intelligent Speed Adaptation - Part 2 - short story

The first steps regarding ISA started in 1982, in France, with a study of drivers’ behaviour when using an in-vehicle speed limiter, with speed limits set by the driver. Nearly 10 years later, the subject was approached in Sweden, with a trial that involved an active ISA system, namely a haptic throttle (Jamson et al., 2006). From then on, as the technology evolved, different kinds of ISA systems have been tested. In the 90s, the other main projects took place in the UK, exploring a wide scope of aspects of the interaction with ISA, and in the Netherlands, where a fuel restriction system was used.

In the new century, the investigations continued in other European countries: Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Austria, France (with project LAVIA), Norway, Spain and Hungary. An ISA based on a positioning system, in which dead reckoning (i.e., calculation of the distance and direction travelled) and map matching were used to identify where the vehicle was, was explored in Denmark, whereas a recording system, that registers speed and GPS position that are then uploaded to be matched with a digital road map was used in Finland.

The dynamic ISA, that sets speed limits depending on traffic, weather, proximity of a school area or of frequent collision zones, has been deployed in the Dutch and Austrian projects.

Outside Europe, studies were conducted in Australia, Canada and China. In Japan, the concept of ISA was applied to indicate speeding to other drivers using lights in the vehicle’s rear window.

Nowadays the countries that started to study the issue are developing partnerships with public institutions in order to promote ISA use (Jamson et al., 2006).