Long-distance heavy truck drivers are prone to fatigue when driving on highways, threatening road safety. To systematically investigate the fatigue characteristics and their progression of heavy truck drivers during prolonged highway driving, an on-road driving experiment was conducted for truck drivers operating continuously on highways. Cameras were mounted to continuously monitor the driver’s seat, with driving behaviors correlated to fatigue levels-such as the frequencies of rearview mirror-checking and non-driving-related movements-quantified through video analysis. An eye tracking device was utilized to acquire and process ocular metrics-including blink duration and pupil diameter-during driving sessions. Subsequent analysis employed function fitting, driving behavior characterization, and multilayer perceptron (MLP) modeling to examine the progression patterns of fatigue characteristics during prolonged highway driving, the correlation between fatigue manifestations and driving behaviors, and safety-critical time thresholds for continuous driving duration of truck drivers. The results indicate that the safe threshold for continuous driving time for truck drivers is between 3.6 and 3.7 hours. Regarding passive fatigue generated during driving tasks, detection of fatigue onset via mean blink duration occurred 5~15 minutes prior to drivers’ active fatigue countermeasures in 48.69% of observed instances. A notable reduction in passive fatigue frequency was observed during the 1.5~2.0 h interval of continuous driving. Statistical analysis revealed significant correlations between both rearview mirror-checking frequency and non-driving-related movements (NDRMs) with mean blink duration. An MLP model constructed using the frequencies of rearview mirror-checking, NDRM occurrences, and communication behaviors as predictors without ocular metrics achieved an 80.2% detection rate for passive fatigue during driving. These research outcomes provide theoretical foundations and practical references for developing video-based fatigue monitoring systems, implementing fatigue alerts, and enhancing driving safety for heavy trucks.

The active management and control strategy in the weaving section of expressways plays a crucial role in enhancing operational efficiency and improving driving safety. Self-luminous road marking is a new type of road traffic safety active control facility. Because of its intelligent control, virtual and real transformation, emergency warning and other functional characteristics, it has attracted more and more attention and gradually promoted and applied. In order to explore the effect of the new road marking in the expressway weaving area, based on the driving simulation test, this paper analyzed the influence characteristics of self-luminous road marking on driving behavior from the perspective of drivers and evaluated the effect of self-luminous road marking. Two simulation scenarios were designed: one with conventional road markings and the other with self-luminous road markings under nighttime conditions. Driving behavior data were collected, and six indicators were selected to construct an evaluation system, focusing on driving safety, comfort, and driver control performance. These indicators include standard deviation of speed, standard deviation of lateral position, root mean square of longitudinal acceleration, standard deviation of acceleration, mean speed, and throttle effectiveness. Further analysis was conducted to examine the significance of differences and effect size levels of various indicators under different road marking scenarios. Finally, an extension matter-element model was applied to construct a comprehensive evaluation model to compare the effects of the two road marking schemes. The results indicate that self-luminous road markings significantly influence driving behavior characteristics in weaving sections. Under the self-luminous marking condition, drivers’lateral position perception and control levels is improved, speed regulation ability is increased, and vehicle movement becomes more stable. The comprehensive evaluation based on the extension matter-element model shows that self-luminous road markings are more effective than conventional road markings in enhancing driving safety in expressway weaving sections.