WHG Roadshow Drives Awareness Of Fatigue Tech

In early August, HVIA attended WHG’s ‘Tech Drive’ industry event held in Melbourne, part of a roadshow of events the telematics and technology provider has been running over the past two years.

The event featured news on the latest in telematics developments, compliance, new products, and featured a range of speakers from industry, associations and regulatory bodies.

Crucially, the event was used to launch WHG’s strategic partnership with Sleep Advice Technologies of Italy which will offer cutting-edge fatigue detection capabilities via already-established wearable devices from global technology company Garmin.

Sleep Advice Technologies has developed its own ‘PREDICTS’ software system, which is a series of patented algorithms designed to predict fatigue and sleepiness. It utilises real-time analysis of the user’s nervous system via the wearable device and generates alarms to warn of impending transitions from wakefulness to drowsiness, well before the onset of sleep.

L-R: WHG’s Dylan Hartley, HVIA’s Harrison Hunkin and Adam Ritzinger, Healthy Heads In Trucks and Sheds’ Naomi Frauenfelder, WHG’s Rob McDonald and Garmin’s Brendan Vu

These capabilities will be commercially available from Q4 2024 and offer transport professionals in every sector new pathways to manage fatigue. They complement other fatigue and distraction detection systems and fatigue management technologies already in the Australian marketplace from companies such as Teletrac Navman, MT Data, Geotab, Optix and V-DAQ.

These capabilities have never been more important for Australian fleets. Last week, transport insurer NTI released the latest edition of its major incident investigation report, NTARC 2024.

The report highlights that inattention and distraction incidents have increased by 75 per cent compared to 2023 findings. Overall, the category of incidents which includes distraction is called ‘human factors’ which itself grew by 42 per cent compared to 2023. That category also includes incidents due to fatigue.

Australia’s National Heavy Vehicle Regulator keenly understand this risk and the need to act. In July, the NHVR released its ‘Fatigue and Distraction Detection Technology (FDDT) Good Practice Guide’. The guide is intended to be educational and provide a starting point for fleets on the good practice options to help manage challenges that might be encountered with FDDT introduction and use. There is also a shorter ‘summary’ version of the guide available on the page above which provides a snapshot of key topics.