A key challenge for commanders of Navy ships operating under reduced manning will be the necessity of maintaining continuous crew alertness under frequently-changing operating conditions in an enclosed environment. Currently, ship commanders rely on rules of thumb and their years of experience to decide when their crew is insufficiently rested, and to adjust the ship's official readiness level accordingly. In individual duty stations, such as air defense, section chiefs personally monitor their on-duty crewmen, replacing them with waiting reserves when they detect one of them has become drowsy. Individual crewmen, meanwhile, are reprimanded for dozing off on the job, and rely on "gallons and gallons" of coffee, as one sonarman put it, to remain sufficiently alert to avoid reprimands. However, the alertness of the section chiefs is not necessarily monitored, and their abilities to detect alertness problems in their crew before serious vigilance or judgment lapses occur are untested.

Crew problems in maintaining alertness may be greatly exacerbated under reduced manning, when extra personnel will not be available for on-line crew monitoring and unscheduled replacements. Of course, the problem of managing alertness in around-the-clock transportation-related work environments is not unique to the Navy. For example, a sizable number of commercial maritime industry attendees to the recent National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) workshop on Managing Fatigue in Transportation (November, 1995) recounted ongoing difficulties in maintaining safety, performance, and crew well-being during continuous operations. Anecdotal stories of accidents that might have happened abound among circadian researchers -- commercial airline crews overflying Los Angeles, bus drivers and ship pilots asleep at the wheel.

Unfortunately, in both commercial and military transportation organizations, such stories rarely reach official ears in time for a full inquiry until a disaster refocuses official attention on the difficulty of maintaining crew alertness during around-the-clock operations. Under normal conditions, management may adopt a "right-stuff" attitude, maintaining their personnel should be counted on under any circumstance, and may rely comfortably on long-held operating traditions to maintain optimum performance under changing circumstances. Attitudes within the military toward workplace fatigue may not be far from those held by commercial managers or the public at large.

At the recent NTSB meeting, Professor William Dement recounted a story illustrative of the little regard given to alertness problems by society as a whole. He recalled that 20 years ago, when some drunk university students crashed their car into his yard, they were given a wink and a nod by the investigating authorities. Today, drunk drivers are much more severely punished for their irresponsibility. Yet recently, when a sleepy student missed the same curve one early morning, Professor Dement noted that once again the driverwas treated sympathetically by the arriving police. The student most probably knew he was driving with impaired alertness, much as drunk drivers also know they are impaired. However, Dement noted, our society has not yet appreciated or accepted the importance of responsible alertness management, even when public safety is involved.

As the world's largest shiftwork employer (U.S. Congress, 1990), the U.S. Navy stands to suffer the most severe consequences of reduced crew alertness under reduced manning conditions. However, behavioral and physiological science has progressed to the point where more responsible and scientific methods of alertness management are not only conceivable, but possible, and are becoming increasingly important.

An Integrated Fatigue Management System