Name: Anna Anund

Job title: Research Director, Human Factors

Panacea project partner:  VTI

Panacea project work packages: WP1, WP6 and WP9

Q1. What is your personal area of expertise?

PANACEA is the third EU project that I am the coordinator for. The two ones before were Safeway2school and ADAS&ME. PANACEA is bringing them together supporting toward alert and well being bus drivers/shuttle operators in city environment.

Q2. What are you currently working on for the Panacea project?

My main role in PANACEA is to be the coordinator taking care of daily activities and being the contact person for the EC. In addition, as a sleepiness researcher, my focus is on the use case focusing on city bus and shuttle drivers, making sure that we develop a health tool kit so it supports drivers to achieve better health and improved working conditions.

Q3. Tell us about one particularly striking thing that you learned from your latest research for the project.

There is so much that can be done to support improved health for bus drivers and also better working conditions. This needs to involve not only the drivers but also their managers taking into considering the differences between individual drivers, schedules in general and distribution of driving time within a shift, but also working environment in general.

Q4. Explain how you think this will help the PANACEA project achieve its aims of improving fitness to drive among professional transport workers.

Thanks to the work up to now we have been able to develop a more accurate selection of counter measures on a strategic, tactical, and operative level.

Q5. Why is working on a road safety project important to you?

I also have a bus driving licence and even though I have not worked professionally as a bus driver I see that a system that supports them to drive will help. Today we know that almost 20% of city bus drivers must fight to stay awake while driving the bus 2-3 times a week or more often. This is not good for them and is causing a risk of severe crashes.