Citation

Jacob A, Akkara J, Vineetha N. Transp. Res. Proc. 2020; 48: 3188-3196.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Elsevier Publications)

DOI

10.1016/j.trpro.2020.08.163

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Driving is a complex task incorporating most of the body organs and sensory system. Coordinated performance of eyes, ears, hands and legs are required in harmony with mental or cerebral actuations. Depending upon the stimulus the cardio vascular performance of a driver varies. The objective of this paper is to model the heart rate kinetics of drivers in response to variation in highway curve geometry. The study was done on 114 horizontal curves of two lane rural highways of Kerala. Heart rates of 30 drivers were collected during their drive along the study stretches. Cross sectional details of curve like radius of curve, length of curve, deflection angle, superelevation, width of road, width of shoulder and available sight distance were measured. Similarly the length of preceding tangent to the curve was also considered.

FINDINGS of the study revealed the correlation of sight distance and shoulder width with average heart rate. A nonlinear regression model was proposed based on analysis.

Language: en

Keywords

driver workload; geometry; Heart rate; two-lane rural highway