Don Nolan-Proxmire
Headquarters, Washington, DC            October 25, 1995
(Phone:  202/358-1983)

Mike Mewhinney
Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA
(Phone:  415/604-3937)


NOTE TO EDITORS:  N95-67

NASA, NTSB SPONSOR SYMPOSIUM ON FATIGUE

     State-of-the-art countermeasures to reduce fatigue-
related transportation incidents and accidents will be 
discussed during a two-day national symposium beginning at 
8:30 a.m. EST, November 1, at the Sheraton Premiere Hotel, 
Tysons Corner, VA.  

     Sponsored by NASA's Ames Research Center, Mountain 
View, CA, and the National Transportation Safety Board 
(NTSB), the symposium entitled "Managing Fatigue in 
Transportation," will address for the first time fatigue 
relating to drivers, airline crews, train crews, marine 
pilots, watchstanders, transportation companies, 
schedulers/dispatchers, enforcement agents, researchers, 
manufacturers and anyone entrusted with public safety.

     NASA Ames Research Center's Fatigue Countermeasures 
Program has developed an Education and Training Module 
designed to explain the current state of knowledge about the 
physiological mechanisms underlying fatigue.  The Module 
demonstrates how this knowledge can be applied to improving 
operator sleep, performance and alertness and offers 
countermeasure recommendations that are relevant for all 
modes of transportation.

     Initiated in response to a 1980 Congressional request, 
the Fatigue Countermeasures Program examines potential 
safety issues related to human fatigue during air transport 
operations.  Since the program began, NASA has conducted 
extensive research, including field studies, to document the 
effects of fatigue and to develop countermeasures.

     The NTSB has investigated accidents in every mode of 
transportation in which the effects of fatigue, circadian 
factors and sleep loss have been found to be causal or 
contributory.  Since 1972, the NTSB has issued nearly 80 
fatigue related safety recommendations to the Department of 
Transportation, transportation operators, associations and 
unions.  

                    -more-

                    -2-

     Featured presenters will be Dr. Mark Rosekind, Ames 
Fatigue Countermeasures Program; Dr. David Dinges, 
University of Pennsylvania Medical School; Dr. William 
Dement, Stanford University Medical School; Dr. Tom Roth, 
Henry Ford Hospital; Dr. Charles Czeisler, Harvard 
University Medical School and Dr. Alan Pack, University of 
Pennsylvania Medical School.



                    -end-


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