Distracted driving behavior in patients with insomnia.

Insomnia is one of the most common sleep disorders and is characterized by a subjective perception of difficulty falling asleep. Drivers with insomnia are vulnerable to distraction and exhibit higher levels of risk while driving. This study investigated the effect of two sources of in-vehicle distractions on the driving performance of drivers with insomnia and good sleepers by analyzing different driving behavior measures. Twenty-one drivers with insomnia and twenty-one healthy volunteers were recruited to complete simulated driving dual tasks. The primary task required the participants to perform: (a) a lane-keeping task, and (b) a lane-change task. The secondary task required the participants to deal with: (a) baseline (non-task), (b) internal distraction task, and (c) external distraction task. The internal distraction task required participants to complete quantitative reasoning tasks, while the external distraction task was a 0-back test. The relationship between distracted driving ability and cognitive function was also investigated. The results demonstrate that for lane-keeping tasks, drivers with insomnia had significantly higher standard deviations (SD) for speed, throttle position, acceleration, and lateral position than healthy drivers under internal distraction, but the driving performance did not differ significantly between groups under internal distraction or baseline. In the lane-change task, drivers with insomnia had higher SDs for steering wheel angle, steer angular velocity, lateral acceleration, and lateral speed than healthy drivers under external distraction. Moreover, external distraction impaired driving behavior in the healthy group, while internal distraction impaired driving ability in both groups. Healthy drivers with cognitive impairment displayed impaired lane-keeping abilities under internal distractions and impaired lane-changing abilities under external distractions. Driving performance in the insomnia group was not significantly associated with cognitive function. The results demonstrate that insomnia and distraction impair driving ability, and driver performance is affected differently by the distraction source (internal or external). The driving ability of healthy drivers with decreased cognition was impaired, but not that of insomniacs.The findings of this study provide new insights for preventing and estimating the potential influence of distracted driving behavior in individuals with insomnia.

Fatigue performance in patients with chronic insomnia.

Insomnia is associated with fatigue and poor driving performance, thus increasing the risk of traffic accidents. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of fatigue on driving in patients with chronic insomnia in a free-flow traffic scenario and car-following scenario, and to investigate the relationships between driving performance, cognitive function, and insomnia. The Trail Making Test (TMT), Stroop Color and Word Test (SCWT), Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT), and Digit Span Test (DST) of 15 participants with mild-to-moderate chronic insomnia and 16 healthy participants were assessed. During the fatigue driving task, drivers completed simulated driving tasks under free-flow traffic and car-following scenarios. The mean speed (MS), mean acceleration (MA), mean lateral position (MLP), and standard deviation of lateral position (SDLP) were measured to assess driving performance. During fatigued tasks, the MA and MLP in the free-driving scenario were higher than those in the car-following scenario (P < 0.01), the SDLP was higher in the insomnia group than in the healthy group (P = 0.02), and the interaction effect was significantly different for MLP between the groups (P = 0.03). MS was negatively correlated with TMT score, SDMT score, and DST score, and positively correlated with time to complete TMT, errors in SCWT, and time to complete SCWT. SDLP was negatively correlated with DST score and positively correlated with time to complete SCWT. Furthermore, the insomnia group had poorer lateral vehicle control ability than the healthy group. The insomnia group had a more impaired driving performance in the free-driving scenario than in the car-following scenario. Drivers with impaired cognitive function exhibited impaired driving performance.

An empirical study on consumer automobile purchase intentions influenced by the COVID-19 outbreak.

The sudden onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may influence individuals' automobile purchase decisions, thus bringing great uncertainty to the automobile industry. To this end, the current study investigates individuals' behaviors regarding the purchase of automobiles, both before and after the outbreak of COVID-19. An ICLV (integrated choice and latent variable) model that integrates the socio-demographics, epidemic-related variables and psychological latent variables is applied. A survey of 960 respondents was conducted in China during the epidemic. The results suggest that there was an increase in the demand for automobiles after the COVID-19 outbreak. Firstly, demand was especially high in the groups of females, citizens, high-income earners, and people who own a driving license or who live in high epidemic risk areas. Secondly, although the severity of the epidemic for residences has a positive effect on automobile demand, travelers' perceived vulnerability is the key factor motivating purchases. Thirdly, the epidemic's negative income effects reduced the purchase propensity. Several dynamic policies are proposed to automobile consumption of the special time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Measuring the effects of mind wandering in people with insomnia: A driving simulator study.

Purpose: Studies have shown that individuals with insomnia experience more frequent and longer episodes of mind wandering (MW) while driving. However, the effect of the interaction between insomnia and MW on driving behavior is not fully understood. This study aimed to gain deeper insights into the relationships among insomnia, MW, and driving behavior. Patients and methods: Forty-two participants (21 diagnosed with insomnia and 21 controls) were recruited, and subjective sleep quality and cognitive function were assessed. A driving simulator experiment with a within-subject design was performed, involving two distraction tasks (no-distraction task versus MW task) and two driving scenarios (lane-keeping versus lane-changing). Results: In the lane-keeping scenario, there was no significant between-group difference (people with insomnia and controls) in longitudinal driving performance for the no-distraction task, although the interaction between MW and insomnia significantly increased drivers' longitudinal control variation. Correlation analysis confirmed that longitudinal driving performance was positively correlated with sleep quality and the cognitive level. Unlike longitudinal driving performance, lateral driving performance was significantly weaker in people with insomnia than in controls under both distraction tasks. In the lane-changing scenario, although there was no between-group difference in driving performance, the MW task led to significant changes in driving performance within each group compared with the no-distraction task, and these findings were associated with cognitive function, but not with sleep quality. Conclusion: These findings show that insomnia and MW combined can lead to reduced driving performance. Further research is needed to elucidate the factors that influence this phenomenon.

The effectiveness and influencing factors of a penalty point system in China from the perspective of risky driving behaviors.

Many countries have adopted penalty point systems (PPS) to deter drivers from breaking traffic laws. To investigate the effectiveness of PPS on reducing illegal driving behavior, this study analyzed traffic violation data of a Chinese city in 2017. This analysis revealed that 1) risky driving behaviors (RDBs) are among the main causes of traffic violations and 2) almost half of the offenders with multiple violations committed the same traffic rule violations more than once. To further explain these phenomena, a survey in another Chinese city-Tianjin-was conducted. Considering the fact that most types of RDBs will, if detected by the authorities, result in traffic violations, the present study investigated the influence of a PPS, represented by penalty experience (PE), on traffic violation behaviors from the perspective of RDBs. Moreover, the impact of cognitive processes on driving behaviors via self-efficacy was considered. We found that drivers' PE is positively associated with their RDBs and that offenders with more PE are more inclined to commit RDBs; we further observed that self-efficacy partially mediates the relationship between PE and RDBs. However, no gender difference in the effect of PE on RDBs was discovered, thus indicating that PE has the same effect on male and female drivers. Based on these findings, some strategies are suggested (such as the Increasing Block Penalty Points Policy) to improve the effectiveness of the PPS.

A system dynamics approach to scenario analysis for urban passenger transport energy consumption and CO2 emissions: A case study of Beijing.

With the accelerating process of urbanization, developing countries are facing growing pressure to pursue energy savings and emission reductions, especially in urban passenger transport. In this paper, we built a Beijing urban passenger transport carbon model, including an economy subsystem, population subsystem, transport subsystem, and energy consumption and CO2 emissions subsystem using System Dynamics. Furthermore, we constructed a variety of policy scenarios based on management experience in Beijing. The analysis showed that priority to the development of public transport (PDPT) could significantly increase the proportion of public transport locally and would be helpful in pursuing energy savings and emission reductions as well. Travel demand management (TDM) had a distinctive effect on energy savings and emission reductions in the short term, while technical progress (TP) was more conducive to realizing emission reduction targets. Administrative rules and regulations management (ARM) had the best overall effect of the individual policies on both energy savings and emission reductions. However, the effect of comprehensive policy (CP) was better than any of the individual policies pursued separately. Furthermore, the optimal implementation sequence of each individual policy in CP was TP→PDPT→TDM→ARM.

Characteristics of traffic flow at nonsignalized T-shaped intersection with U-turn movements.

Most nonsignalized T-shaped intersections permit U-turn movements, which make the traffic conditions of intersection complex. In this paper, a new cellular automaton (CA) model is proposed to characterize the traffic flow at the intersection of this type. In present CA model, new rules are designed to avoid the conflicts among different directional vehicles and eliminate the gridlock. Two kinds of performance measures (i.e., flux and average control delay) for intersection are compared. The impacts of U-turn movements are analyzed under different initial conditions. Simulation results demonstrate that (i) the average control delay is more practical than flux in measuring the performance of intersection, (ii) U-turn movements increase the range and degree of high congestion, and (iii) U-turn movements on the different direction of main road have asymmetrical influences on the traffic conditions of intersection.