BACKGROUND
The transit industry can make important strides forward by enhancing available options for bus operator workstation evaluation and design that improve bus operator health and safety and reduce costs associated with liability, time loss, and disability. Transit agencies need assistance in integrating improved and emerging technologies in bus operator’s workstation design; evaluating the impact of innovations and modifications; and understanding how changes to bus operator workstation design may impact a wide range of measures.
Research is needed to (1) better assess the bus operator workstation in the context of occupational health and safety; (2) examine how bus operator workstation design guidelines can best be used in the bus design and procurement processes; (3) produce user-friendly guidelines for improving bus operator workstation design; and (4) develop a planning and decision-making tool that improves future bus procurements to benefit bus operator health and wellness and transit system safety performance.
OBJECTIVES
The objectives of the research are to develop the following: (1) potential strategies, practices, and policies for reducing bus operator injury and illness and public liability and property damage, attributable to bus operator workstation design in the U.S. public transit industry; (2) guidelines to update and replace TCRP Report 25: Bus Operator Workstation Evaluation and Design Guidelines; (3)a digital Computer Aided Design (CAD) model of driver workstation that can be used by designers and transit agencies in bus specifications; (4) a cost/benefit analysis of implementing an ergonomically designed bus operator workstation ; (5) strategies for transit agencies to train and educate a bus procurement team, that includes bus operators, to effectively participate in the development of specifications for the bus operator workstation; and (6) bus operator training material in ergonomics to improve their health, safety, and job performance.
STATUS: Research has been completed and the final published deliverables are available at https://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/174183.aspx. Three appendices that present additional details are available here:
https://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/tcrp/docs/TCRPC-22_AppendixDEF.pdf
