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How do you know you are fit to drive? How can we provide individual assessment and support, for example, professional drivers? This is what we shed some light on in SAFER's associated project PANACEA - Practical and Effective tools to monitor and assess commercial drivers' fitness to drive.

The project will design, develop and test a holistic driving ability assessment system for commercial drivers to be used pre-driving, during driving and at the roadside, paired with cloud-based countermeasure and coaching solutions. In order to achieve this, PANACEA will create driver-oriented, health-based, touchless, and use case driven health monitoring and assessment solutions capable of detecting for example alcohol, drugs, fatigue, stress and cognitive load. Those drivers detected as unfit by the assessment technology will receive personalised, targeted support from the cloud-based countermeasure and coaching system. Commercial Health Toolkits (CHTs), combining assessment techniques with countermeasure solutions, will be tailored to fit the specific needs of each use case. The CHTs aim to become an ecosystem of support and knowledge for drivers and operators alike, available before, after and during shifts as well as on site and roadside. The sensitivity, specificity, robustness, ease-of-use, satisfaction and acceptance of these CHTs will be evaluated with over 90 automated shuttle, e-truck, coach and taxi drivers and courier service riders, operators and stakeholders, across three pilots in Greece, Spain and Sweden, considering gender specificities. A fourth use case focuses on the transferability of the improved knowledge and technologies to other transport modes, i.e. aviation, maritime and rail. 

The primary outcome of PANACEA is the creation of new assessment technologies and countermeasure strategies which come together as a new fitness to drive paradigm applicable in commercial vehicle operations with vehicles at various automation levels. Finally, with the support of the advisory board, policy and legislative recommendations and updates of existing standards for health provision for commercial transportations will be provided. 

Panacea is an EU-funded Horizon 2020 project under the heading Research and Innovation Action (RIA). The project has 17 partners from 8 countries coming from multidisciplinary fields. The budget is €3.49 million and the project, that started in May 2021, will last for 36 months. The project will be hosted in SAFER’s research area for Road user behaviour.

Project partners

• VTI (Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute)
• ETHNIKO KENTRO EREVNAS KAI TECHNOLOGIKIS ANAPTYXIS (CERTH)
• DATIK INFORMACION INTELIGENTE S.L.
• SENSEAIR AB
• ACONDICIONAMIENTO TARRASENSE ASSOCIACION (LEITAT)
• DEEP BLUE SRL
• AIT AUSTRIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY GMBH
• VIRTUAL VEHICLE RESEARCH GMBH
• UNI SYSTEMS SYSTIMATA PLIROFORIKIS MONOPROSOPI ANONYMI EMPORIKI ETAIRIA (UNI)
• ROADPOL – EUROPEAN ROADS POLICING NETWORKS EV
• TRANSDEV SVERIGE AB
• LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY
• CHALMERS TEKNISKA HÖGSKOLA AB 
• CTLUP SRL
• SYGXRONA AMFIARAEIA ANONYMOS ETAIREIA EREVNAS KAI PAROCHIS PSICHIATRIKON NEVROLOGIKON KAI PSICHOLOGIKON IPIRESION (SynAmp)
• FOUNDATION WEGEMT – A EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES IN MARINE TECHNOLOGY AND RELATED SCIENCES (WEGEMT)
• EUROPEAN TRANSPORT SAFETY COUNCIL (ETSC)