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Realtime Monitoring and Feedback of Individual Alertness Levels  <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> Current locomotive alerters attempt to determine the alertness of the engineer by sensing inactivity of locomotive control functions.  They assume that if locomotive controls are not being manipulated, the engineer may be asleep.  But there are flaws in this concept.  In effect, alerters send a lot of false alarms as they warn engineers who are fully awake.  Engineers become accustomed to resetting the alerter in anticipation of alarms, and because the alerter is sending an excess of alarms, the resetting becomes routine.  And it becomes so routine that engineers are able to reset the alerter in their sleep if they are drowsy.  So the alerter defeats its purpose by too many false alarms.  <o:p></o:p> So experts are working on a new generation of smarter alerters.  However, the NTSB and FRA are not just concerned about the alertness of engineers running locomotives.  They also want to monitor wakefulness of conductors, switchmen, signal workers, and anybody who is working in safety sensitive roles.  Monitoring alertness of these non-engineer employees requires an alerter that is not only smart, but also one that is not a part of a locomotive.     <o:p></o:p> In the locked thread on sleep disorders, I speculated that the problem will be solved by a personal device that will monitor rail worker alertness levels, and will take action if alertness falls below the safety threshold.  This device would be carried by individual workers engaged in safety-sensitive tasks. Ideally, the device would be very small and unobtrusive.   <o:p></o:p> When I suggested this approach in the locked thread, I predicted that we would hear of it being under development within one year.  Forum member Zugmann was incredulous that I would predict such a cure-all device is so short of a time.  He referred to it as a “magic bullet” and also a “silver bullet.”  I kind of like silver bullet, so I will refer to it as that.  <o:p></o:p> But I was wrong about my one-year prediction of the announcement of the development of the silver bullet.  Its development has already begun.  This is the net for the high wire act, so to speak.  In other words, it would take action when a person shows signs of falling asleep, and it would eliminate the need to screen out people who are expected to have trouble staying awake on the job.    <o:p></o:p> Much of this development is focused on drowsiness detection systems for motor vehicles.  Like locomotive alerters, these vehicle sleep monitors are vehicle-based, so the monitoring equipment is part of the vehicle rather than being an apparatus carried by the driver.  These vehicle-based monitors are paralleling the new development of smarter locomotive alters for enginemen.  The Silver Bullet will not be vehicle-based.  Instead, it will be a hand-carried, personal device that goes with the person being monitored.  <o:p></o:p> Not only do these new smart personal alerters need to be lightweight and portable, but they also need to be able to directly monitor key physiological characteristics that indicate wakefulness and the onset of drowsiness.  Although development is under way, the silver bullet is not yet ready for application.  I suspect the hardest part will be the human interface.  How do you connect a human being to a machine that will detect drowsiness?  It is one thing to accomplish that with engineers and other seated employees as well as drivers of cars and trucks.  But it is quite another thing to monitor drowsiness in employees engaged in more physically active work such as switchmen and signalmen.
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