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National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Deborah Hersman is calling on sleep researchers and the health-care community to continue educating transportation policymakers about the dangers of fatigue in all transportation modes.

Fatigue has been a concern for the NTSB since it was created in 1967 and an item on the board’s “Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements” since the list was established in 1990, Hersman said during a speech March 5 at the National Sleep Foundation’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. The NTSB seeks to partner with the foundation and other organizations to increase awareness of fatigue and improve transportation safety.

Because a number of transportation accident investigations found fatigue was the probable cause or a contributing factor, the NTSB has made several safety recommendations that range from deploying fatigue detection systems to installing electronic onboard recorders that collect and maintain hours-of-service data, said Hersman.

“We can’t always prove fatigue as a cause of an accident, but the frequency with which we now routinely document the presence of fatigue-related factors in transportation operations is alarming,” she said.