The objective of this project is to develop and validate a system (called SmarTrans) which improves truck driver’s well-being.

Through a combination of various measurements, personal advice and follow-up will be given to the individual driver to improve his/her health and well-being. This will lead to a reduction of the  risk of accidents and mistakes during work. Furthermore, important social gains will be made in areas such as (traffic) safety, climate and dust particles. Finally, it will also result in cost savings for the employer (lower fuel consumption, lower maintenance costs, etc.) and make the profession of truck driving more attractive.

To realize this goal, 3 parties are closely working together: Trafuco  (an important player in the transport business), Mensura (provider of employee health & well-being services) and BioRICS who provides the technology. They already worked together in a first pilot study during which 20 drivers monitored for a few months with the Mindstretch system. By combining data from the driver with data from the truck, correlations could be found between certain stressors (energy drainers) and the number of fines, fuel use, number of hard breaks, etc.  In the SmarTrans project, the consortium wants to further dig into this and learn how much savings could be gained by taking better care of the driver’s health.

After the project, the new training centre OTC intends to integrate the SmarTrans system in its trainings to optimize the quality of education and attract more drivers to this profession, thus addressing the problem of truck driver’s shortage on the Belgian market.

The SmarTrans project receives financial support from the Flemish Government (VLAIO).