TØI Vitenarkiv
Not a member yet
668 research outputs found
Sort by
Bicycle helmets – To wear or not to wear? A meta-analyses of the effects of bicycle helmets on injuries
No full textAlena Høye, Bicycle helmets – To wear or not to wear? A meta-analyses of the effects of bicycle helmets on injuries,
Accident Analysis & Prevention, Volume 117, 2018, Pages 85-97, ISSN 0001-4575, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2018.03.026.A meta-analysis has been conducted of the effects of bicycle helmets on serious head injury and other injuries among crash involved cyclists. 179 effect estimates from 55 studies from 1989–2017 are included in the meta-analysis. The use of bicycle helmets was found to reduce head injury by 48%, serious head injury by 60%, traumatic brain injury by 53%, face injury by 23%, and the total number of killed or seriously injured cyclists by 34%. Bicycle helmets were not found to have any statistically significant effect on cervical spine injury. There is no indication that the results from bicycle helmet studies are affected by a lack of control for confounding variables, time trend bias or publication bias. The results do not indicate that bicycle helmet effects are different between adult cyclists and children. Bicycle helmet effects may be somewhat larger when bicycle helmet wearing is mandatory than otherwise; however, helmet wearing rates were not found to be related to bicycle helmet effectiveness. It is also likely that bicycle helmets have larger effects among drunk cyclists than among sober cyclists, and larger effects in single bicycle crashes than in collisions with motor vehicles. In summary, the results suggest that wearing a helmet while cycling is highly recommendable, especially in situations with an increased risk of single bicycle crashes, such as on slippery or icy roads.Bicycle helmets – To wear or not to wear? A meta-analyses of the effects of bicycle helmets on injuriesacceptedVersio
Safety culture in maritime transport in Norway and Greece: Exploring national, sectorial and organizational influences on unsafe behaviours and work accidents
Get PDFHighlights • The study compares crew members on Norwegian and Greek cargo vessels and passenger vessels. • The study examines the influence of national safety culture, sector safety focus and organizational safety culture on (three types of) safety behaviours, compared with other variables. • The study examines the influence of safety behaviours and other factors on occupational injuries. • Organizational factors like demanding working conditions and organizational safety culture are the most important predictors of Risk acceptance/violations and Non-intervention/non-reporting. • National safety culture is the most important predictor of respondents’ tendency to work under the influence of alcohol/hungover. • Respondents’ occupational injuries are influenced by Risk acceptance/violations, nationality and age. • The study indicates that safety culture at different analytical levels, influence different types of unsafe behaviours, which in turn influence the risk of work injuries. • The study indicates that it is important to study safety culture at different analytical levels (i.e. the national, sectorial and organizational), to fully understand the influence of culture on safety in transport.publishedVersio
Review and meta-analysis of inter-modal cross-elasticity evidence
Get PDFThis manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/acceptedVersio
Residential location, workplace location and car driving in four Norwegian cities
Get PDFBased on a study in four Norwegian cities (Oslo, Stavanger/Sandnes, Bergen and Trondheim) differing in size and center structure, this article illuminates how residential and workplace location, local-area density and transit accessibility influence different aspects of travel behavior. We find strong effects of residential and workplace distance to the city center on overall driving distances and commuting distances. We also find clear effects of local area densities around residences and workplaces on the choice of car as a travel mode, along with less pronounced effects of the distance from dwellings and workplaces to the city center. In the cities with the best developed transit provision, we also see clear effects of transit accessibility at the residence on the propensity of choosing the car as travel mode. The results provide strong support of Norwegian national policies of urban densification as a planning strategy to curb the growth in urban motoring. However, although the influences of urban structure on travel show many similarities across the four cities, there are also important differences reflecting variations in center structure (predominantly mono- or polycentric) and population size. The magnitude of the influences of various urban structural characteristics on travel behavior are thus highly context-dependent.Residential location, workplace location and car driving in four Norwegian citiesacceptedVersio
How can we improve safety culture in transport organizations? A review of interventions, effects and influencing factors
Get PDFThe main objectives of the present study are to (a) map interventions that can be used to develop good safety culture in transport companies within road, sea, air and rail transport, (b) assess expected effects of interventions on safety culture and safety outcomes and (c) identify factors influencing safety culture change. By systematically reviewing the scientific literature, we identify 20 studies that describe and evaluate interventions to improve safety culture in road, rail, sea and air transport organizations. The review is reported according to PRISMA guidelines. The interventions studied vary widely in their comprehensiveness, but a lack of both standardized outcome measures and controlled evaluations means that it is difficult to compare different interventions, either within or across sectors. Most studies, however, report improvements in safety culture where this is measured. We find that attempts to understand the mechanisms of cultural change leading to behavioural change and improved safety performance are lacking. Although safety culture is an organizational measure, we only found one peer-reviewed study of an attempt to improve safety culture in a single air transport organization and no studies of this in the maritime sector. We conclude that on the whole the reviewed safety culture interventions seem to be effective, but comprehensive and resource demanding. We suggest that future research should develop simpler interventions by focusing on the basic requirements of safety culture change. We contribute to this by identifying four key activities (content) which seem to be common in all the reviewed interventions, and eight key factors (process) influencing the success of efforts to influence safety culture. The basic requirements of safety culture change seem to be to institutionalize joint discussions of work place hazards facilitated by manager commitment and employee involvement.acceptedVersio
SeeMe at the crosswalk: Before-after study of a pedestrian crosswalk warning system
No full textAlena Høye, Aliaksei Laureshyn, SeeMe at the crosswalk: Before-after study of a pedestrian crosswalk warning system, Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, Volume 60, 2019, Pages 723-733, ISSN 1369-8478, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2018.11.003.SeeMe is a pedestrian crosswalk warning system with automatic pedestrian detection that is mounted on crosswalk signs. Amber flashing lights are activated when pedestrians are approaching or crossing the crosswalk. The aim is to attract motorists’ attention, to improve yielding behavior and to reduce conflicts. A before-after study with a matched comparison group has been conducted in the Norwegian municipality of Trondheim. Video observations were made at eight crosswalks (four of which were equipped with SeeMe in the after period) of 1825 pedestrian-motorist interactions. On average, yielding rates at SeeMe equipped crosswalks increased by 14% (statistically significant) when changes at the comparison sites are taken into account. However, the results are inconsistent between crosswalks. At two of the crosswalks with SeeMe in the after period, yielding rates increased by 39% (statistically significant), while they decreased by 4% at the other two crosswalks (not statistically significant). There were several differences between crosswalks with increased and unchanged yielding rates: Initial yielding rates (below vs. above 80%), placement of crosswalk signs (immediately at vs. at some distance from the crosswalk) and false alarm rates (30% vs. 57% on average). These factors may have affected the effect of SeeMe on yielding rates, but the number of crosswalks included in the study is too small to generalize the differences between different types of crosswalks. The results do not indicate that SeeMe has negatively affected pedestrian behavior or provoked conflicts. It is concluded that SeeMe may be effective in increasing motorist yielding rates at crosswalks with similar characteristics as in the present study - two-lane roads in residential areas with moderate motor vehicle volumes and speed limits of 50 kph or below - and that high initial yielding rates and high rates of false alarms may limit its effectiveness.SeeMe at the crosswalk: Before-after study of a pedestrian crosswalk warning systemacceptedVersio
Children's out-of-home leisure activities: changes during the last decade in Norway
Get PDFThis study, based on two nationally representative samples of children aged 6–12 years and their parents from 2005 and 2013–2014, explores changes in children's play, through changes in participation in three different out-of-home leisure activities during the last decade in Norway as well as the interactions between these activities. The study finds that there has been an increase in the share of children who participate in organized leisure activities; that they start to participate at a younger age; and that the intensity of participation in organized leisure activities has increased. During the same period, there has been a decrease both in the extent of unsupervised play outdoors and in the degree to which children visit friends’ houses. A key empirical finding is that there is a strong positive association between participation in organized leisure activities and, respectively, the extent of unsupervised outdoor play and visits to friends.acceptedVersio
Implications of ride-sourcing and self-driving vehicles on the need for regulation in unscheduled passenger transport
Get PDFThe recent emergence of large-scale ride-sourcing services, such as Uber and Lyft, is a major development in passenger transport. By utilizing fleets of private cars and app technology, these services call into question the definitions of private and commercial transport and challenge the existing transport framework in multiple ways. By operating between commercial and private services, they are partly outside the control of governments and, to some extent, contravene current regulations.
In this paper, we combine the literature on regulation and economic properties of the unscheduled passenger transport markets with scenario analyses for examining how ride-sourcing and automated vehicles affect these markets.
Our main findings are that the underlying economic mechanisms faced in markets dominated by ride-sourcing and automated vehicles have similarities with traditional markets. Hence, regardless of how the services are offered, some need for regulation will remain. However, as the market segments are different and a shift in their relative importance is likely, the possible and suitable forms of regulation will change.acceptedVersio
How to keep drivers engaged while supervising driving automation? A literature survey and categorization of six solution areas
Get PDFThis work aimed to organise recommendations for keeping people engaged during human supervision of driving automation, encouraging a safe and acceptable introduction of automated driving systems. First, heuristic knowledge of human factors, ergonomics, and psychological theory was used to propose solution areas to human supervisory control problems of sustained attention. Driving and non-driving research examples were drawn to substantiate the solution areas. Automotive manufacturers might (1) avoid this supervisory role altogether, (2) reduce it in objective ways or (3) alter its subjective experiences, (4) utilize conditioning learning principles such as with gamification and/or selection/training techniques, (5) support internal driver cognitive processes and mental models and/or (6) leverage externally situated information regarding relations between the driver, the driving task, and the driving environment. Second, a cross-domain literature survey of influential human-automation interaction research was conducted for how to keep engagement/attention in supervisory control. The solution areas (via numeric theme codes) were found to be reliably applied from independent rater categorisations of research recommendations. Areas (5) and (6) were addressed by around 70% or more of the studies, areas (2) and (4) in around 50% of the studies, and areas (3) and (1) in less than around 20% and 5%, respectively. The present contribution offers a guiding organisational framework towards improving human attention while supervising driving automation.submittedVersio