Fatigue among bus drivers in Ghana and Norway: Examining the influence of working conditions and national road safety culture

The present study examines factors influencing fatigue among professional drivers in Ghana and Norway, focusing on the role of national road safety culture and work stress/time pressure. The study is based on surveys of Ghanaian (n = 281) and Norwegian (n = 285) bus drivers and qualitative interviews with bus drivers in the two countries (n=19 and n=11). We found that Norwegian bus drivers reported considerably fewer incidents of dozing off or falling asleep during the past three months compared to the Ghanaian bus drivers. Qualitative data indicates that bus drivers’ work situation in Ghana is far less regulated than in Norway, with low regulation and enforcement of bus drivers’ working hours and a higher prevalence of pay based on the number of passengers, which motivates long working hours and speeding. Surprisingly, multivariate analyses of the survey data indicate that neither age, mileage, experience, a national road safety culture with a higher level of aggressive violations, longer working hours, nor having bonus-based wage were statistically significantly associated with increased fatigue when controlling for country. Amongst drivers who are not self-employed, work stress/time pressure and organizational safety culture had a statistically significant impact on fatigue after the respondent’s country was controlled for. Ultimately, country (i.e. Ghana vs Norway) had the most significant influence on the likelihood of drivers falling asleep or dozing off, with Norwegian drivers being considerably less likely to experience this. Surprisingly few other variables were able to explain the difference between the two countries.