Rural Payments and Services

A group of psychology researchers from the University of Aberdeen has created a tractor safety app aiming to encourage farmers to stop, think and take action to stay safe.

Agriculture has the UK’s highest fatal accident rate with transport – overturning vehicles or being struck by a vehicle – causing the most deaths in 2018/19 (Health and Safety Executive).

The agriculture research group at the University of Aberdeen developed the app to aid tractor drivers’ situation awareness. Part of the University’s School of Psychology, the research group looks at the human factors in agricultural safety and risk and focuses on identifying and supporting non-technical skills for farmers.

The app, developed through research with UK farmers, is an online safety checklist. Dr Amy Irwin, project lead, said:

“The app has two main aspects, a driver situation awareness checklist and a list of brief key checks to be carried out before jumping into the tractor.

“The aim is to support and enhance driver situation awareness, encouraging farmers to stop, think and take action.”

The results of the online survey study with UK farmers highlighted the importance of skills for safety.

“The driver situation awareness checklist is designed to be used in the planning phase of operations, or as part of safety discussions between workers. The checklist has four areas: visibility; route; personal; and task management,” Dr Irwin explains.

“In each category the user indicates whether they consider a risk to be present, or not. The app then produces a list of items where a risk has been reported as present, along with suggested actions to remove the risk prior to operations.”

Farmers can take the checklist with them everywhere on their mobile phone, making it easy to perform the checks.

“Research has shown that using a checklist increases the reliability of checks over time, ensuring nothing gets forgotten – it’s why pilots use checklists at the start of every flight and surgeons conduct checklists before operations. By using the app farmers are less likely to forget anything, their situation awareness will be enhanced, and they will be safer.”

The app is free to download from the University of Aberdeen website.