The impact of continuous driving time and rest time on commercial drivers' driving performance and recovery

•A real road driving study was conducted with thirty-three commercial drivers participating in the experiment.•The impact of continuous driving time on driving performance was examined.•The effect of rest time on the recovery of the driving performance was studied.•Drivers' driving performances, such as attention, reaction, are all affected successively after over 2 h of continuous driving.•The drivers should take a certain amount of rest to recover from the fatigue after over 2 h of continuous driving.

ProblemThis real road driving study was conducted to investigate the effects of driving time and rest time on the driving performance and recovery of commercial coach drivers.MethodsThirty-three commercial coach drivers participated in the study, and were divided into three groups according to driving time: (a) 2 h, (b) 3 h, and (c) 4 h. The Stanford Sleepiness Scale (SSS) was used to assess the subjective fatigue level of the drivers. One-way ANOVA was employed to analyze the variation in driving performance.ResultsThe statistical analysis revealed that driving time had a significant effect on the subjective fatigue and driving performance measures among the three groups. After 2 h of driving, both the subjective fatigue and driving performance measures began to deteriorate. After 4 h of driving, all of the driving performance indicators changed significantly except for depth perception. A certain amount of rest time eliminated the negative effects of fatigue. A 15-minute rest allowed drivers to recover from a two-hour driving task. This needed to be prolonged to 30 min for driving tasks of 3 to 4 h of continuous driving.Practical implicationsDrivers' attention, reactions, operating ability, and perceptions are all affected in turn after over 2 h of continuous driving. Drivers should take a certain amount of rest to recover from the fatigue effects before they continue driving.