The idea for this special section started during the Environmental Design Technical Group (EDTG) meeting at the 2023 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society's (HFES) annual conference in Washington, DC, USA. The group discussed how to engage more researchers and practitioners, and one member expressed curiosity about whether people truly understood the expansive nature of environmental design research. Thus, a special issue was proposed to highlight these differences. [...]

To establish guidelines for sleeping space in vehicles, the sleeping postures of 189 participants are studied, 105 of them were asked to take the position in which they fall asleep and 84 have been asked to assume the position in which they lie most of the time. Seven percent slept on the stomach, 19% on the back and 74% on the side and 49% slept on the side with both legs flexed. For all participants a bed size of 200 × 90 cm will do. It is discussed that for one night while travelling a bed size of 171 × 76 cm might be sufficient as it results in a reasonably good sleep according to another study and in almost half of the cases in this study people sleep on the side with both legs folded. Apart from the sleeping space for a good sleep, attention is needed for a dark environment with a good temperature and relative silence.

Background: Current jet airplanes are not sustainable, and turboprop aircraft can be a more sustainable alternative for regional travels. However, the noise levels in turboprops can range from 83 to 92 dB(A), which is higher than jets and is the largest contributor to discomfort in turboprops. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of utilizing noise-cancelling headphones or earplugs in mitigating (dis)comfort experienced by passengers aboard turboprop aircraft. Methods: An experiment was designed in a grounded Boeing 737 cabin with the sound source inside. Twenty-four participants experienced four conditions: jet sound (Boeing 737), turboprop (ATR 72) sound, turboprop sound with active noise-cancelling (ANC) headphones, and turboprop sound with earplugs. The sound level used for all conditions in this test ranged between 84.2 and 86.3 dB(A). Passenger experiences were measured using questionnaires, including a newly developed Ear Local Discomfort questionnaire. Results: The comfort and discomfort scores for the conditions involving ANC headphones and earplugs are significantly improved compared to the conditions without hearing protection. The impact of noise on discomfort is mitigated in these two conditions, though it remains the most prominent factor. ANC headphones cause more discomfort around the ear, while earplugs cause discomfort inside the ear. Conclusion: The use of ANC headphones and earplugs in a turboprop airplane might increase the acceptance of these airplanes. ANC headphones are slightly preferred over earplugs, but both solutions have specific limitations.

The comparatively environmentally friendly turboprop aircraft should be used more often, but still need some improvements, especially regarding noise. To facilitate research into these improvements, an On-Ground Regional Passenger Cabin Demonstrator was built and validated through a comparison with passengers’ reactions to real turboprop flights. Seventy-three subjects answered questions on various environmental factors during a simulated flight in the Cabin Demonstrator. Subject testing revealed that the Cabin Demonstrator was overall perceived as realistic compared to real flights, and the comfort level was comparable to the previously conducted in-flight subject test. Thus, the Cabin Demonstrator can be used for multiple future tests.

Turboprop aircraft should be improved as they are more environmentally friendly aircraft compared to turbojet aircraft but noise and vibration are often too high for passengers. A simple and uncomplicated way to carry out experiments is using a demonstrator. To determine whether the demonstrator represents the reality, it must be validated. In this project, real flights were first conducted in a turboprop aircraft. During two 70-minute flights, 94 subjects answered questions about symptoms, mood or comfort levels related to noise and vibration, among other things. In the next step, investigations will be carried out in the demonstrator under the same conditions as the real flights. Both results will be compared with each other. If the data from the demonstrator corresponds to that of the real flights, the demonstrator is considered to have been successfully validated. The requirement for this is that the demonstrator data lies within the confidence intervals of the results from the real flights. The aim is to validate a full-scale on-ground demonstrator of a regional turboprop aircraft cabin that will be used for multiple tests like subject tests and comfort evaluation, composite materials and structures, systems and energy consumption.

Taking a nap is a welcome pastime in vehicles such as trains, airplanes, and cars. Flat sleeping cannot always be facilitated because of space and economic constraints, but a larger backrest recline angle is associated with better sleep quality. To define the best and the worst comfort experience and sleep comfort in these settings, and to offer design guidelines to practitioners, six backrest recline angles were compared regarding overall comfort and sleep comfort. The backrest recline angles ranged from 110 to 150 degrees, and 180 degrees was added as a reference. 16 participants were invited to sleep for a duration of 90 min. in each condition. Overall comfort and sleep comfort significantly improve in conditions higher than 120 degrees. Local discomfort is rated relatively low in all angles, but in comparison, people experience high discomfort in the neck, lower back, and lower leg region while in the 110 and 120 degrees condition. It is concluded that in the bigger recline angles the napping comfort experience is higher, with a minimum advised angle of 130 degrees.

Automated driving frees users from the task of driving, allowing them to engage in new activities. Using keywords related to Non-Driving-Related Activities (NDRAs) and automated vehicles (and their variants), with reference to the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) levels 3, 4, and 5, the authors identified 2430 studies from various databases and sources. Of these, 47 were included in this study, with 39 included in the meta-analysis. The meta-analysis of the included studies shows a positive correlation between automation levels and the diversity of NDRAs. Communication and interaction with passengers are the most common activities, followed by media consumption, rest, and relaxation. Food and drink consumption slightly surpasses working and productivity, while personal habits and hygiene are less prioritized. Although some users still value vehicle monitoring, this need decreases with higher automation levels. Key activities such as communication, laptop use, and sleeping are highlighted as significant benefits of automation, as users transition away from situational awareness and are able to perform cognitively intensive tasks. The review also addresses potential design implications to support these NDRAs and discusses related regulatory challenges.

To reduce the weight of a seat of a city car (A-segment), a car seat was developed. First, a questionnaire was used to define the main functions the occupants prefer to have in the seat. The reclining and forward afterwards movement of the seat were seen as most important. Therefore, a reclining mechanism was built into the lightweight chair. This seat was tested by 39 participants and compared with a benchmark seat of the Toyota Aygo. It was clear that comfort testing is difficult comparing a full developed car seat with a prototype, which still needs development. Nevertheless, the comfort was comparable between the two seats and the shoulder space of the new seat was appreciated. The conclusion is that it is possible to develop a lighter weight car seat, which has the main features preferred by occupants, but further development is needed.

When designing wearables that interface with the human head, face and neck, designers and engineers consider human senses, ergonomics and comfort. A dense 3D pressure discomfort threshold map could be helpful, but does not exist yet. Differences in pressure discomfort threshold for areas of the head, neck and face were recorded, to create a 3D pressure discomfort threshold map.

Between 126 and 146 landmarks were placed on the left side of the head, face and neck of twenty-eight healthy participants (gender balanced). The positions of the landmarks were specified using an EEG 10–20 system-based landmark-grid on the head and a self-developed grid on the face and neck. A 3D scan was made to capture the head geometry and landmark coordinates. In a randomised order, pressure was applied on each landmark with a force gauge until the participant indicated experiencing discomfort. By interpolating all collected pressure discomfort thresholds based on their corresponding 3D coordinates, a dense 3D pressure discomfort threshold map was made.

A relatively low-pressure discomfort threshold was found in areas around the nose, neck front, mouth, chin-jaw, cheek and cheekbone, possibly due to the proximate or direct location of nerves, blood veins and soft (muscular) tissue. Medium pressure discomfort was found in the neck back, forehead and temple regions. High pressure discomfort threshold was found in the back of the head and scalp, where skin is relatively thin and closely supported by bone, making these regions interesting for mounting or resting head, face and neck related equipment upon.

The sleep quality and (dis)comfort sitting upright was studied among 40 participants who took a nap at home. They were asked to take a nap at 17:00h on three consecutive days. The backrest had to be at a different angle every day: upright, reclined and more reclined. They were asked to record the backrest angle of the three positions and report the length of the sleep, the sleep quality, comfort and discomfort and influence of other factors each during each nap. From the 120 cases (3 conditions, 40 participants), the cases where participants were not able to sleep had an average backrest angle of 110˚, which was significantly different from the cases where participants were able to sleep, who had an average backrest angle of 118˚. The scores in the more upright position (<110˚) resulted in significantly more discomfort and a lower sleep quality than in the reclined positions (>123˚). As the conditions were arranged by the participants, there was much variation in outcomes. Therefore, future research under more standardised conditions is recommended.

For the sake of energy and cost savings, it is sometimes necessary to maintain the indoor climate in a room at conditions that deviate from optimal thermal comfort. More important than thermal sensation is how a change in conditions will affect the thermal acceptability of a space and whether the percentage of people who are (dis)satisfied with the environment will change with regard of the acceptability. The aim of this technical note and arithmetic study is to find out to what extent the thermal indoor climate can be assessed on the basis of thermal
acceptability, in addition to the thermal (dis)satisfied, by making use of research that has already been carried out. In addition to the relationship between the percentage of (dis)satisfied and acceptability, attention is paid to how this result relates to current Dutch government building regulations. The paper concerns a proposal for the assessment of thermal indoor climate based on the thermal acceptability, in addition to the thermal (dis)satisfied.

Passengers' comfort experience during flights is important in choosing their flights. The focus of this study is passengers’ perceived comfort in different climbing angles during ascent. Twenty-six participants were invited to experience three inclination angles including 3°, 14° and 18° in a Boeing 737 cabin. The angle of 3° was used to simulate cruising stage and the other two were used to simulate different climbing angles. Participants experienced each setting for 20 min where the perceived comfort, their heart rate variability(HRV), and their body contact pressure values on the backrest and seat pan were recorded with questionnaires, HRV bands and pressure mats respectively. The results indicate a preference of 14° inclination angle resembling the cruising angle (3°) and having the slowest moving speed of the center of pressure (COP) on both the backrest and seat pan.

The aviation industry needs to reduce CO2 emissions. Turboprop aircrafts consume 10-60% less fuel compared to regional jets. In addition, electric propeller aircrafts are now in development, which can be CO2 neutral. However, in turboprop aircrafts the noise level is high and the space is limited. For flight attendants that work long hours in these aircrafts, this could become demanding. In this paper, the environmental comfort and ergonomics are studied in an experiment in a turboprop aircraft as a base for improving the working conditions for cabin personnel in future propeller aircrafts. In general, it can be concluded that the tasks of the FAs in a turboprop are challenging regarding both physical and mental aspects. Unfavourable postures, high forces required for manoeuvring the trolley, little recovery time and a noisy environment all contribute to increased physical workload levels, which cause discomfort. The work is mentally demanding as resting time is very limited on short flights. When developing aircraft interiors, attention should be paid to reduce cabin noise and to ergonomic designs that require lower physical forces and allow FAs to work with healthy postures.

Wearables are used to recognize human activities in various applications. However, there is limited evidence on the comfort feelings in using wearables, which is crucial for the adoption and long-term engagement of users in those applications. In this paper, we propose the concept of comfort wearables in the context of in-flight posture recognition. A comfort wearable and a tight-fit version, using identical hardware and software architecture, were prototyped and tested by 35 participants in a Boeing 737 cabin. During the usage of each wearable, participants were asked to perform seven frequently observed in-flight sitting postures and report their overall comfort/discomfort afterwards. A multilayer perceptron neural network was used to classify those activities. Experiment results indicated that participants appreciated the comfort wearable, rating it with significantly higher comfort scores and lower discomfort scores. Cross-validation results also revealed that using the comfort wearable achieved even better accuracy (74.8%) than using the tight-fit wearable (65.8%) in posture recognition. Outcomes of the study demonstrate that ergonomic design and technical accuracy are not competing factors in the wearable design and highlight the opportunities for designing and using comfort wearables in broader contexts.

BACKGROUND: A valid distribution of key anthropometric parameters among participants is often a perquisite of ergonomics research. OBJECTIVE: In this paper, we investigated the accuracy of self-reported stature and body mass of the population in the Netherlands. METHODS: Data from 4 experiments was synthesized where in each experiment, participants self-reported their stature and body mass prior to being measured, of which they were not notified before. RESULTS: Statistical analysis of 249 records indicated that on average, participants overreported their stature by 1.31 cm and underreported their mass by 1.45 kg. This is especially true for people with a BMI ≥ 25. CONCLUSION: Two models were proposed to adjust the self-reported stature and body mass for ergonomic researchers in a survey or recruitment. Limitations in using the models are highlighted as well.

High-speed rail might be a solution to reduce energy usage and carbon emissions as rail transport consumes less energy than airplanes. However, in choosing a transport system, time is an important factor in making many passengers choose air travel. This paper studies the reasons why passengers choose a transport mode, and compares the comfort of aircraft and train seats. This study shows that time and costs are the most mentioned factors, but comfort and sustainability can play a deciding role between trains and airplanes on time and cost-competitive travel routes. The train seat is evaluated as the most comfortable, but still, part of the passengers choose the aircraft as the length of sitting on the seat is limited.

Seat pressure maps are often used to evaluate comfort of the users. In this study, we explored the relationships between pressure maps and comfort/discomfort of users in aircraft seats with a focus on a new 6-division method on the pressure maps collected at the bottom of the cushions. An experiment was designed where three cushions with identical shapes but different stiffnesses were prepared. 33 subjects joined the experiment and after sitting on each cushion in 4 postures, they completed comfort questionnaires. Pressure maps on the top as well as the bottom of cushions were collected and analysed. Results indicated that measures on the proposed 6 divisions, especially on the distal posterior thigh regions and regions close to ischial tuberosity of the bottom pressure maps, had larger correlation values to comfort scores compared to other division methods. Practitioner summary: The relations between comfort/discomfort and seat pressure maps collected from the top/bottom of three cushions were studied with 33 subjects in four postures. The distal posterior thigh and ischial tuberosity regions in the proposed 6-division of the bottom pressure maps had larger correlation values to comfort/discomfort compared to other methods.

Comfort is an important factor for passengers in the selection of airlines, and electric propeller aircraft will be an important element of future sustainable aviation. In this paper, we studied the order of importance of different (dis)comfort factors regarding traveling with propeller aircraft. Two experiments were conducted, one was a simulation flight on the ground with 33 participants and the other were two real flights with 97 participants. All participants were asked to rank the importance of different (dis)comfort factors in different phases of flights. Results indicated that though there are differences between the simulation and the real flights, noise, vibration and the seat are among the most important factors regarding discomfort, and space, lighting, temperature and seat are the most important factors of comfort. The results are different to those reported from previous studies on travelling by jet, where anthropometry is the most important factor. This finding suggests a difference in passenger perception between travelling by propeller propulsion and jet engines, and casts new requirements on the aircraft interior and service design for future sustainable aviation.

The aviation industry is constantly making compromises when designing comfortable airplane cabins. Providing passengers with a pleasant acoustic environment without adding weight to the cabin structure is a field of tension that challenges cabin interior designers. The aim of this study was to investigate whether noise levels affect the comfort and physical discomfort experienced by airplane passengers, and whether control influences comfort perception. To this end, 30 participants experienced three conditions (silence, aircraft engine noise at 75 dB, and the same noise with the ability to use earplugs), and comfort and discomfort were measured using a questionnaire. It was concluded that aircraft engine noise negatively affected the airplane passengers’ comfort experiences. Having the ability to control this noisy environment with earplugs resulted in the lowest reported physical discomfort.

Sitting comfort is an important factor for passengers in selecting cars, airlines, etc. This paper proposes a soft robotic module that can be integrated into the seat cushion to provide better comfort experiences to passengers. Building on rapid manufacturing technologies and a data-driven approach, the module can be controlled to sense the applied force and the displacement of the top surface and actuate according to four designed modes. A total of 2 modules were prototyped and integrated into a seat cushion, and 16 subjects were invited to test the module’s effectiveness. Experiments proved the principle by showing significant differences regarding (dis)comfort. It was concluded that the proposed soft robotics module could provide passengers with better comfort experiences by adjusting the pressure distribution of the seat as well as introducing a variation of postures relevant for prolonged sitting.