Henry Bowles sunset his maritime career as a strategic planner at Crowley Maritime nearly three decades ago but not before the occurrence of one of the most famous environmental disasters in history: the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 that resulted in severe ecological impact on the Alaskan coastline.
Bowles’ role in the incident was focused on the engineering response to prevent future disasters, and after contributing to the design and implementation of double-hull engineering, he turned his attention toward preventing accidents beyond the maritime industry.
Inspired by the preventability of the oil spill, which investigations determined was caused by impaired and fatigued crew members, Bowles co-developed an alertness testing system that is now called AlertMeter by fleet safety software provider Predictive Safety, of which he serves as board chairman.
Predictive Safety has partnered with video telematics and fleet management solutions provider Lytx to provide a complete picture of fatigue – before, during and post shift – among employees in high-risk fields like truck drivers.
Though Lytx confirmed it does not yet have any trucking fleet customers using both its platform and AlertMeter, Vice President of Channel Sales Dave Cassie said those fleets would benefit by adding another proactive layer of protection beyond traditional compliance tools.
“Fatigue is complex, so no single solution can solve it entirely. But these technologies address two critical points in the fatigue-management process: assessing risk before a driver starts a trip and identifying concerning behaviors while the driver is on the road,” Cassie said. “Fleets can help close remaining gaps by combining technology with strong policies, consistent coaching, open communication with drivers, and a culture that treats fatigue as a shared safety responsibility.”
Testing for alertness
Bowles went to NASA to discover how the organization tested its astronauts as a starting point to designing the alertness test. NASA uses a psychomotor vigilance test (PVT) that tests reaction time, among others, that goes on for hours – not commercially viable. NASA has no input into the development of AlertMeter, but based on that technology, Bowles and his team created a much quicker test that could be applied in workplace settings.
Played on a tablet or mobile device, the 45-second game measures decision-making skills, reaction time, short-term memory and ability to switch mental tasks through 21 screens that cycle through different combinations of shapes. The player is asked to determine if all the shapes are the same or if one shape is different with six seconds to respond for each display. The test is also sprinkled throughout with random shapes the player is asked to memorize and will later be asked to recall.
The scoring algorithm takes speed, accuracy and item difficulty into account and then compares the computed score to the individual’s baseline score, which is established beforehand by playing the game multiple times without being scored.
Predictive Safety Chief Marketing Officer Peter Hay said individuals only ever play against themselves. It is not based on group scores.
“As you play it more and more, it starts understanding which shapes you are good with, which shapes you're not good with, and it creates your own personal baseline or brain print,” Hay said. “So if you come in and something's going on with you and you deviate from your normal gameplay, it identifies you as potentially impaired.”
AlertMeter will then send an alert to management that the individual tested outside of their normal range. Hay said that leads to a coaching session that determines the course of action for that individual that day.
Another brain health assessment platform has also entered the transportation market. NeuroUX has provided cognitive testing for almost a decade but only in research and healthcare use cases. Co-founder Anunay Raj said the company has received many requests over the years from emergency services, trucking companies, aviation companies and even sports teams to provide fatigue testing for employees and athletes.
The assessment tests for reaction time, displaying a screen that asks the player to tap on the screen as soon as the timer appears. If the player taps before the numbers appear, they receive a false start, and if they tap continuously, they are asked to remove their finger. The test takes under three minutes and flags the person as slow or quick compared to their individual baseline. They then receive a simple “ready” or “not ready” result.
“It’s testing the duration after which the numbers appear,” Raj said. “It is considered the gold standard for alertness and fatigue-related assessment, and it is one of the very few cognitive tests out there that has no practice effects, so even if you do it multiple times, you don't get better at it.”
Both AlertMeter and NeuroUX allow the individual to retake the test a second time in case of distraction, and both provide a dashboard of insights into fatigue from the individual and shift levels to unit and location levels.
An alternative use case
Catering operations at a major airline uses AlertMeter combined with Lytx. NeuroUX doesn’t currently integrate with other safety systems. A representative of catering operations for the major airline said their unit noticed a decrease in driver fatigue alerts from Lytx after implementing AlertMeter.
The unit deployed the app for its aircraft catering truck drivers to assess their alertness before start of shift to reduce the risk of accidents behind the wheel. The representative noted that using AlertMeter gives unit management insight into the wellbeing of its employees and allows them to reassign a fatigued employee to a non-safety-critical role for that shift to prevent risk while also allowing them to earn a paycheck.
“I think we all come from the environment of knowing that we have to show up to work to get paid; that's just the world we live in, especially for industries such as aviation, trucking, logistics and warehousing,” the representative said. “Their employees … don't have the choice not to show up for work, so a lot of times they'll come into work knowing that they're tired, knowing that they have other issues or things going on, but they want to be there. An employee shouldn't get punished for that.”
Though Hay pointed out that this wouldn’t work the same in a long-haul trucking environment, the airline’s catering representative said it could still prove beneficial in that sector of transportation.
“I think, honestly, it can be life- and money-saving,” they said.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recorded 644 deaths in drowsy driving-related crashes in the U.S. in 2024, and an estimated 17.6% of fatal crashes between 2017 and 2021 involved a drowsy driver, according to a 2024 AAA Foundation study.
Combining pre-testing with real-time alerts
The catering operations representative said using Lytx’s real-time fatigue alerts helps management monitor employees who may have tested somewhat out of range but were permitted to continue their work for the day. They said Lytx also serves as a filter for those who played the game successfully, having not been fatigued in that moment but may have become fatigued later in the day.
“They're driving; there's a lot of stopping, starting, a lot of monotonous work,” the representative said. “It's very common when you're during a down period for those (employees) that are on the ramp to take a power nap. They're not operating any equipment. It's fine.”
But they noted that Lytx is able to catch the ebbs and flows throughout a driver’s day like when they are waking from that nap to get back to work and may still be a little groggy.
“We have one (AlertMeter) on the front end and then one (Lytx) to do the full catchall of everything else while they're actually out and doing their work throughout the day,” they said.
Lytx’s technology detects fatigue in the moment while AlertMeter and NeuroUX serve in a more proactive capacity.
That can be useful in commercial carrier use cases in which drivers are home every night like last-mile delivery drivers or truckers who drive local routes. For long-haul operations, these types of tests can be combined with safety technology like Lytx or other camera systems that offer fatigue detection for continued monitoring long after the test was taken.
Raj noted that NeuroUX users may choose to send alerts to the driver to retake the test after so many hours of driving to ensure continued alertness. He said it helps supervisors identify elevated risk and follow established procedures such as a rest break, retest, reassignment or delayed start.
Affecting change
For long-haul operations, Hay said alertness testing would serve more as a means to make the driver and their manager aware of their cognitive abilities, leading to conversations that can help the driver change their habits or help advise the company’s policies around fatigue.
Hay pointed to Predictive Safety’s work in New Zealand that helped the country’s livestock council navigate hours-of-service restrictions.
He said drivers play the AlertMeter game, and their managers can assess, based on how many more kilometers they have to drive, whether they should continue driving.
“They were struggling being able to deliver their livestock in a timely manner because they were hitting their hours of service. What they were able to do with this was prove that they weren't fatigued,” Hay said. “They were then basically working with the New Zealand government on fatigue standards to be able to extend hours of service to make sure the deliveries were being made.”
