Prevalence of fatigue among commercial bus drivers in Malaysia

In Malaysia, there is a dearth of information on fatigue among commercial vehicle drivers. A study on commercial bus drivers in Malaysia revealed that fatigue is common among commercial bus drivers; about 32 per cent of them experienced fatigue after completing the trips for the day. Road crashes involving commercial buses in Malaysia are alarming. Statistics over a five-year period from 2000 to 2005 have shown an increasing trend of crashes involving buses. This has seen a consequent increase in the numbers of both fatalities and injured cases. In the year 2005, there were 3385 casualties recorded from crashes involving buses compared to 603 in the year 2000. This accounted for more than a five-fold increase. Human factors, especially fatigue at the wheel could be the causes of the crashes. As very few studies have been undertaken to investigate the extent of driver fatigue among commercial bus drivers, this study should shed some light on this phenomenon.