Motorcycle Riding Posture: a Review ⇑ Muthiah Arunachalam, Chirapriya Mondal, Gurdeep Singh, Sougata Karmakar
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Measurement 134 (2019) 390–399 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Measurement journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/measurement Motorcycle riding posture: A review ⇑ Muthiah Arunachalam, Chirapriya Mondal, Gurdeep Singh, Sougata Karmakar Department of Design, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, Assam, India article info abstract Article history: The incidence of fatalities with two-wheeler is more as compared to any other automotive in most of the Received 9 February 2018 south-east Asian countries. Out of the numerous causes of postural fatigue, uncomfortable riding posture Received in revised form 18 September is one of the major factors for motorcycle rider’s muscular fatigue which might lead to accidents or near 2018 accidents. Following a systematic literature review, the current paper has elucidated state of the art Accepted 6 October 2018 knowledge associated with motorcycle riding posture under the three sub-heading entitled as (a) Available online 15 October 2018 Rider’s adopted posture and various influencing factors (b) Posture prediction of the motorcyclist and (c) Posture evaluation. Readers of the present review would get fair insight regarding the effectiveness Keywords: of various tools and techniques used for posture evaluation and various research gaps pertaining to Two-wheeler Motorcycle the user-centered design of motorcycles to improve riding posture. Future research scope in the domain Motorbike of motorcyclist’s posture prediction and evaluation includes the development of country/region specific Posture databases for rider’s anthropometry, range of motion and comfort joint angle etc. for the proactive design Ergonomics of motorcycles targeting the intended user population. The current review would serve as a meaningful and valuable resource for the researchers engaged in automotive sectors with a special interest in motor- cycle design. Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 390 2. Methodology......................................................................................................... 391 3. Review findings . ......................................................................................... 391 3.1. Rider’s adopted posture and various influencing factors . ............................................................ 391 3.1.1. Human factors associated with riding posture ................................................................. 391 3.1.2. Design features of motorcycle . ................................................................. 392 3.1.3. Impact of environmental variables on motorcyclist’s posture . .............................................. 393 3.2. Posture prediction of the motorcyclist. ............................................................................ 394 3.3. Posture analysis. ............................................................................................... 394 3.3.1. Comfort/discomfort analyses using DHM . ................................................................. 394 3.3.2. Comfort/discomfort studies using posture evaluation tools and questionnaires . ........................... 394 3.3.3. Postural comfort/discomfort studies using equipment . .............................................. 395 4. Conclusion . ......................................................................................................... 396 References . ......................................................................................................... 397 1. Introduction more as compared to any other automotive [1–4]. The plausible causes behind the road accidents could be linked to the motorcy- All over the world, a major cause of unnatural death is road mis- cle, its rider and the ambient environment [5]. Here, the authors hap. As per reports, the incidence of fatalities with two-wheeler is of the current papers, define ‘motorcycle’ as the motorized (pow- ered by petrol, diesel, battery/electricity etc. but not driven by human muscle force) two-wheelers which represent all kind of ⇑ Corresponding author. mopeds, scooters, electric bikes etc. E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Karmakar). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2018.10.019 0263-2241/Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. M. Arunachalam et al. / Measurement 134 (2019) 390–399 391 Postural fatigue during riding, drunken driving and lack of skills view of riding posture and how the riding posture is affected by and/or training may be listed as the human factors associated with various human factors (physical characteristics, riding experience, motorcycle accidents. Generation of awareness regarding riding duration of riding, cognitive load etc. of the rider), design charac- safety and strict implementation of government laws can control teristics of motorcycle and environmental variables (road, weather drunken driving to some extent but proper training and practice and traffic conditions). If these factors negatively impact the rider’s canonlyimprovethelackofridingskills.Thecausesofposturalfati- adopted posture during riding, there is fair probability of perceiv- gue during riding include damagedroads,badweatherconditions, ing postural discomfort by the rider. The short-term and/or long- high vibrational impact from the motorcycle, inappropriate riding term postural distress and thereby muscular fatigue might lead posture, mental load, attitude and physiological aspects of the rider. to difficulty in easy maneuverability of the motorcycle, altered rid- In this context, it is extremely difficult to identify the most potent fac- ing behavior along with diversion of attention [6–8]. All these may tor affecting the riding posture and thereby discomfort/fatigue [2]. become the potential cause for the motorcycle accidents or near to Although the motorcycle accident is a multi-factorial phenomenon, accidents [9]. uncomfortable riding posture is one of the major factors for rider’s muscular fatigue [6–8] which might lead to accidents. To understand and define comfortable and/or optimal motorcy- 3.1.1. Human factors associated with riding posture cle riding posture, researchers should know about different posture Rider’s physical characteristics (anthropometrics, age, gender adopted by the riders in case of different types of motorcycles; fac- etc.), riding experience, duration of riding etc. are important deter- tors affecting/responsible for motorcyclist’s adopted posture; minants of adopted posture during riding. Among these, anthropo- available tools and techniques for rider’s posture evaluation; avail- metrics (human body dimension) is one of the crucial factors while able databases on motorcyclists’ anthropometry, total range of designing a motorcycle with intention of providing comfortable motions (ROM) and body joint angles during perceived comfort/ riding posture. It is observed that six key body dimensions are discomfort; posture prediction; and means for reducing postural commonly taken into consideration while designing a motorcycle. discomfort produced during motorcycle riding. As the information These anthropometric variables are stature, inner leg or crotch regarding aforesaid topics are discrete in nature and not well doc- height, knee height, buttock-knee length, acromion to grip length, umented or synthesized in a single resource, the authors of the cur- and hip breadth [10–12]. Other anthropometrics like trunk height, rent paper has attempted to collect all the relevant information of thigh circumference, popliteal to buttock length and knee opening motorcyclist’s posture and present the same through systematic dimensions are also been used by some designers/researchers [11]. review under different headings and subheadings to make the cur- Anthropometric data essential for motorcycle design are rarely rent paper a meaningful and valuable resource for the designer/e been reported from different countries particularly for the riders’ ngineers/researchers engaged in automotive sectors with special population. Many of the databases are for general population with interest in motorcycle design. mixed professions and the number of drivers/riders have not been mentioned separately in the sample size. Moreover, during devel- 2. Methodology oping an anthropometric database for motorcycle riders, both male and female participants have not been considered. Thus, the num- The literature on various topics related to motorcycle riding ber of male and/or female riders is not found in the database. posture was collected both from available hard copy resources like Besides, few key anthropometry e.g. buttock-knee length, acro- books and journals from various libraries and from electronic data- mion to grip length which required for a motorcycle design are also bases like Scopus, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, SAE mobilus and missing. All these discrepancies have been shown in Table 1 with Google scholar. Various keywords and combinations of keywords, the example of few available anthropometric databases from dif- which were used in electronic search engines, include motorcycle, ferent countries like India [13–16],UK[10,12], Nigeria [17] and motorbike, two-wheeler, scooters, moped, comfort angle, preferred Malaysia [11]. Country/region specific anthropometric data of the motorcycle posture, riding posture, muscular fatigue of motorcycle motorcycle riders (both male and female) are essential for design- rider