As we reported earlier in the summer Edinburgh Trams are leading a Driver Innovation Safety Challenge (DISC) project along with IHF to help to monitor driver fatigue and it has now been announced that this project will be known as FOCUS+ and is now entering the pilot test stage in September.
FOCUS+ has been chosen as the name to reflect the aims of DISC to delivery a secure and performant wearable technology solution able to improve the safety of drivers and mobile workers by monitoring their fatigue and wellbeing levels. The project has been progressing over the summer with the delivery of the second prototype by IHF which will now be tested during September.
The official explanation of FOCUS+ says: “The FOCUS+ Pilot aims to test the acceptability of the FOCUS+ design including comfort, interference with working duties of a user and to co-create with the user’s part of the solution’s design. The DISC project is built as a partnership between operators, IHF, and Edinburgh Trams to make sure that the solution created increases care for the driver, while being comfortable to wear and easy to use. The pilot will also collect a large quantity of data to “train” the FOCUS+ algorithms through machine learning. Participants to the pilot are currently being recruited within Edinburgh Trams staff. “
DISC is being led by Edinburgh Trams with the support of UK Tram and Transport for Edinburgh and a partnership of public and private sector organisations including the City of Edinburgh Council and the Scotland CAN DO Innovation Challenge Fund.