Need for further knowledge on countermeasures

Up until now, very little research on the cost-effectiveness of measures to reduce the number of fatigue related crashes has been carried out (an exception is Sassani et al [99]). This is awkward because, first of all, it is already problematical to objectively determine if a crash was indeed a consequence of fatigue. Yet it is certainly something that needs to be taken seriously. This is why the objective determination of costs and benefits of fatigue management is seen internationally as one of the challenges in fatigue research during the coming years. Also, when one wants to implement fatigue detection systems on a large scale, their cost effectiveness will certainly be a topic of discussion; a lot more will need to be known.

Besides determining the cost-effectiveness of measures, further development of useable and reliable fatigue detection systems and the accompanying criteria is a subject of research that is getting a lot of attention especially in Europe. Determining the extent of the fatigue problem for road safety seems to be regarded as less relevant in Europe. One reason may be the consideration that it is sufficiently well known that fatigue is an important factor. In spite of this, a well-designed, large-scale epidemiological study on the risk-increasing effects of fatigue could be an important contribution to knowledge about this problem.