ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the history of research concerning the effects of operator fatigue. It describes some key historical developments within the sub-fields. The chapter traces notions of fatigue from antiquity and pre-industrial times through the early experimental studies that began in the late nineteenth century, up to modern developments. It outlines some of the main applied areas of research that have developed in the period since the 1960s. Beginning in the 1960s, the methods used to study fatigue in aviation were applied to highway operations. Subsequently, the methods migrated into research concerning fatigue in various forms of transportation, and in the new working environments created by advances in technology, within which familiar forms of fatigue are apt to re-emerge. In addition to original myths about fatigue and sleep, two more modern myths concerning operator performance have arisen in the industrial age.
