Human Factors and Sustainable Safety

Led by Professor Jennie Oxley, the Human Factors and Sustainable Safety team uses a human factors approach to explore the interface between people and technology within complex and dynamic environments, focusing on understanding the system surrounding the individual, and the factors that support and constrain safety behaviour.

The team's research extends to the safety of people at home, at work and the land transport environment with a focus on identifying practicable and feasible solutions to help organisations, regulatory agencies and government bodies address their safety needs. This includes cutting edge research into the influence of worker fatigue and driver aggression on road safety.

Major projects

In 2025, the team finalised the review of the Queensland Learner Driver Program (LDP), examining online and practical components and their alignment with best practice approaches to successfully equip learner drivers with the skills and competencies needed to become a safe driver and maintain safe driving practices during early licensure. A competency-based framework was developed comprising essential key competencies that learner drivers and their supervisors should gain through their LDP journey and beyond. The framework also identified key actions for implementation including both broad actions and those specific to individual LDP components, and a roadmap for action implementation that can achieve an effective and sustainable LDP.

Additionally, the team, in collaboration with Loughborough University undertook research that focuses on understanding differences in visual and other functional impairments between drivers with early stage dementia and healthy drivers to inform development of a reliable test of fitness to drive based on visual scanning and other functional performance measures amongst individuals with early-stage dementia. This has been expanded to include additional simulator-based and naturalistic driving studies to gather further evidence to inform the development of a prototype Driving Monitoring System designed to sense driving performance and outcomes and provide valuable feedback aimed at supporting safe driving.

In a growing area of research, the team were awarded funding for a project on the implementation of the National Driver Distraction Roadmap, a project funded by Austroads that will generate two guidelines aimed specifically at mitigating distracted driving. Additionally, the team is assessing drivers' perspectives on in-car glucose monitoring devices.

Team milestones

Professor Oxley and Emeritus Professor Judith Charlton were invited to the 4th Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in Marrakech, where they contributed to meetings and conversations about the challenges for the second half of the Decade of Action for Road Safety, with ‘engagement with industry’ being at the forefront of the agenda. Additionally, the team were given opportunities to present in South Korea, the United Kingdom and Australia.

Student success

In 2025, PhD student Doha Alhashmi (co-supervised with Department of Occupational Therapy) completed her thesis ‘Safe return to driving after sustaining road traffic injuries: Driver assessment and rehabilitation policy and practice recommendation for Saudi Arabia’ and Honours students Bridget Harland and Bryn Smith completed their research projects within the team.

Funding partners

Research continues to be funded by the team's many partners, including the Department of Transport and Main Roads in Queensland. Funding for the dementia project is made possible through the UK Road Safety Trust and National Road Safety Action Grants from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development. Dr Amanda Stephens was invited to be on the editorial board for Transport Research (Part F), and Professor Oxley was elected as an AIPN executive committee member.

The Human Factors and Sustainable Safety team draws on research expertise in human factors, using a variety of methods to understand systems under investigation, including on-road testing, driving simulation, surveys, crash investigations, vehicle performance testing, participatory ergonomics design, structured interviews, stakeholder consultation and human factors methods, such as cognitive task analysis, and interface and usability assessment.