A Mobile Sensing Approach to Stress Detection and Memory Activation for Public Bus Drivers

The experience of daily stress among bus drivers has shown to affect physical and psychological health, and can impact driving behavior and overall road safety. Although previous research consistently supports these findings, little attention has been dedicated to the design of a stress detection method able to synchronize physiological and psychological stress responses of public bus drivers in their day-to-day routine work. To overcome this limitation, we propose a mobile sensing approach to detect georeferenced stress responses and facilitate memory recall of the stressful situations. Data were collected among public bus drivers in the city of Porto, Portugal (145 h, 36 bus drivers, +2300 km), and results supported the validation of our approach among this population and allowed us to determine specific stressor categories within certain areas of the city. Furthermore, data collected throughout the city allowed us to produce a citywide “stress map” that can be used for spotting areas in need of local authority intervention. The enriching findings suggest that our system can be a promising tool to support applied occupational health interventions for public bus drivers and guide authorities´ interventions to improve these aspects in “future” cities.