Fatigue is difficult to measure, but its impact is obvious in industries where attention, reaction time, and decision making matter every day. Transportation, mining, manufacturing, aviation, healthcare, logistics, energy — almost every safety-critical industry deals with it in some form.

Most organizations already know fatigue is a risk. The harder question is what to actually do about it.

Historically, fatigue management has relied heavily on indirect indicators: hours worked, supervisor observations, self-reporting, or assumptions based on schedules. While these approaches are important, they also leave room for inconsistency. Two people can work the same shift and perform very differently depending on sleep quality, workload, stress, health, environment, or recovery.

That’s why we’ve built a Fatigue Monitoring Platform. Our platform is centered  around our Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT), designed specifically for operational environments where speed, simplicity, and repeatability matter.

Why PVT?

The Psychomotor Vigilance Test has been one of the most widely studied and validated tools for measuring behavioral alertness and fatigue. Unlike questionnaires or observational methods, the PVT measures actual performance changes in sustained attention and reaction time.

Research over decades has consistently shown that fatigue affects reaction speed, lapses in attention, and cognitive performance, often before people fully recognize these changes themselves.

We specifically chose the adaptive version of our PVT (PVT-BA) for our Fatigue Monitoring Platform because it is:

  • Under 3 minutes
  • Provides immediate results
  • Establishes personalized baselines
  • Works on smartphones and tablets
  • Non-invasive
  • Backed by decades of sleep and fatigue research
  • Sensitive to sleep deprivation and sustained fatigue
  • Practical for repeated testing

The adaptive design of the PVT-BA dynamically adjusts test duration based on performance while maintaining sensitivity to fatigue-related cognitive changes. In most cases, the test can be completed in under 3 minutes on any smartphone or tablet.

Built for Safety-Critical Operations

We designed the platform for industries where fatigue can directly impact safety, decision making, and operational performance. That can include transportation, mining, manufacturing, aviation, healthcare, logistics, construction, energy, and other environments involving long shifts, overnight operations or safety-sensitive work.

Organizations may use the platform in different ways:

  • Pre-shift fit-for-work checks before workers begin operations
  • During-shift testing on long shifts, night shifts, or high-risk tasks
  • Post-shift monitoring to track recovery and cumulative fatigue patterns
  • Ad-hoc testing after incidents, near-misses, or when a supervisor flags a concern

We’ve built both web and mobile app versions to make deployment easier across different operational environments. The experience is intentionally lightweight and low-burden, with a simple and gamified interface designed for repeated use. The goal here is not to create friction for workers. 

For example, a worker completes a quick pre-shift test on their phone or tablet before starting work. If the platform detects elevated fatigue risk relative to that worker's own baseline, the supervisor receives an alert with the deviation flagged, and can then follow the existing operational protocol, whether that's a conversation, a task reassignment, or something else.

The platform can also incorporate customized pre-test questions or safety reminders, allowing organizations to reinforce site-specific protocols or “top of mind” safety concerns before testing begins.

Personalized Baselines Instead of One-Size-Fits-All Scores

Different people naturally perform differently on reaction time and attention-based tasks. A single universal threshold doesn’t always make sense in operational settings.

That’s why the platform incorporates baseline calibration and longitudinal tracking. Instead of only looking at raw scores, the system can compare current performance against an individual’s own historical patterns over time.

The goal is not to label people. It’s to identify meaningful deviations that may indicate elevated fatigue risk relative to their normal state.

Part of a Larger Fatigue Strategy

We don’t see this as a standalone solution.

A fatigue monitoring tool is only valuable when it sits inside a broader operational strategy that includes scheduling practices, education, reporting culture, supervisor training, workload management, and employee wellbeing initiatives. 

The test itself is just one input.

We also don’t think fatigue decisions should rely entirely on subjective judgement or assumptions based only on schedules and hours worked. Performance-based measures can provide an additional signal that helps organizations make more informed and consistent decisions. 

But even then, no single test should ever be treated as a complete answer.

Free 2-Month Pilot

We’re now opening up the platform to organizations where fatigue and safety are closely connected.If your organization is exploring fatigue monitoring, fit-for-work assessments, or broader safety workflows, we’d be happy to collaborate on a free 2-month pilot program and work together on implementation based on your operational needs.