Use of Digital Tachograph Data to Provide Traffic Safety Education and Evaluate Effects on Bus Driver Behavior

Traffic safety education was conducted with data from a vehicle-mounted digital tachograph device to promote bus driver awareness of safe driving behavior. The objectives were to evaluate the duration of the effects of traffic safety education on abnormal driving behaviors and to identify the differences in education effects between two driver groups: normal and dangerous. A 9-week tracing survey was conducted for 61 bus drivers. Traffic safety education was administered to individual drivers according to their daily driving behaviors. For analysis, a survival model was used to identify the effects of traffic safety education on abnormal driving behaviors. The two main results follow: (a) the effects of safety education decreased more quickly on acceleration-related abnormal driving behaviors than on steering- and deceleration-related abnormal driving behaviors and implied that more concentrated education is required for acceleration-related behaviors and (b) the education effects for the dangerous group lasted longer than for the normal group and implied that abnormal driving behaviors could be reduced if safety education were tailored to the dangerous group. Specialized traffic safety education that reflects individual driving behaviors is recommended for bus drivers, along with periodic traffic safety education to prevent a recurrence (yo-yo effect) in the increased frequency of abnormal driving behaviors.