RTC Ops

The world has evolved significantly, and with it, the need for RTC Ops to meet societal demands. Our traditional views, concepts, terminology, and data on shift work and occupational requirements no longer fully reflect the dramatic changes that are now commonplace in our society. Examining the role and effects of sleep loss in occupational settings requires an evolved definition that more accurately reflects the RTC Ops that pervade the modem workforce. 

These data show that by traditional definitions, it is likely that about one third of the U.S. workforce is working some nonstandard or irregular schedule. Furthermore, expanding the definition as suggested above, such that RTC Ops most accurately represent modem work practices, would likely increase these numbers yet further. 

The requirements for RTC Ops are important because they affect key physiological factors that have significant outcomes on alertness, safety, and performance. In this section, the physiological disruption associated with modem RTC Ops will be examined, common work-related practices described and how they create this physiological disruption, and finally, work activities in the real world are confronted by a multitude of challenges that can further exacerbate this physiological disruption. Some examples of these challenges also are discussed. 

The 24/7 requirements of RTC Ops can affect both sleep and circadian rhythms. The scientific literature suggests that at least four core physiological factors can be affected by, or play a role in, work-related alertness, safety, and performance... 

Sleep can be disrupted in two ways acutely or through a cumulative sleep debt. Acute sleep loss will typically refer to the total amount of sleep an individual obtains in the 24-hr period prior to work. A work-related cumulative sleep debt can be calculated by adding the sleep loss acquired over days. This calculation should begin after an identified recovery period when an individual would have an opportunity to zero out any existing sleep debt. Sleep is a core physiological factor that affects waking alertness, safety, and performance and, as will be apparent, RTC Ops can affect sleep acutely and over time through a cumulative sleep debt. 

RTC Ops can affect all of these physiological factors acute sleep loss and cumulative sleep debt, hours of continuous wakefulness, circadian/time-of-day, and sleep disorders. Diverse work requirements lead inevitably to physiological disruptions and subsequent effects on waking alertness, safety, and performance. 

Inherent in RTC Ops is the associated sleep and circadian disruption that makes the opportunities for recovery sleep very important. Therefore, time off is an important scheduling issue to zero out any accumulated sleep debt and potentially stabilize any circadian disruption. It is critical that these recovery opportunities are both predictable and protected. Individuals working RTC Ops can plan for recovery sleep if the opportunity can be anticipated. Therefore, protecting the recovery opportunity from interruptions, whether work- or home-... 

RTC Ops demands disrupt sleep and circadian physiology with a variety of consequences. In this section, examples demonstrate how these consequences translate specifically into sleep loss, increased sleepiness, and decreased safety across a variety of representative work settings. 

RTC Ops clearly describe the requirements of the global transportation system. In one large study of commercial truck drivers, individuals obtained varying... 

In summary, across all of these examples, any type of nonday or nonstandard work schedule can result in an average total sleep time that is significantly below comparative baselines and demonstrates both the acute and cumulative sleep debt that results from RTC Ops. 

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