Habib Gürbüz

The driver reaction time (DRT) of road drivers not only significantly affects driving stability and performance but also causes traffic congestion and accidents, so its detection is important for traffic safety. In this paper, the effect of driver characteristics and habits (i.e., education, job status, gender, age, experience, health status, and driver habits) on DRT is examined through tests performed in a driving simulator on a randomly selected sample group (49 males and 21 females). Before the tests, 14 different sub-sample groups were created by identifying the characteristics and habits of the drivers based on their own statements through a survey conducted with the sample group. From the DRTs determined for each subsample group, the average DRT and deviation of male and female drivers were calculated separately. The results show that there are significant variations in DRT according to driver characteristics and habits. The DRT of female drivers is approximately 22% higher than that of male drivers. The DRT increases as the driver's age increases. The effect of the driver experience on the DRT is unclear, but the DRT decreases with daily vehicle usage time when considered as an indicator of experience. It was also determined that the DRT becomes shorter as drivers’ educational attainment increases. The DRT is varied by the job status of the drivers; while the unemployed have the highest DRT, public sector employees and students have a significantly lower DRT. In addition, health conditions such as chronic illness, the use of glasses, and fatigue cause a notable increase in DRT. Lifestyle factors such as smoking (negative) and sports activities (positive) affect DRT. While habits such as using mobile phones and CD players/TV while driving negatively affect DRT, seat belt use positively affects DRT.

Recently, studies have highlighted the impact of factors such as environmental, corporate governance, and social performances on companies’ sustainability activities. Therefore, the current study focuses on the impact of environmental and social activities of manufacturing and service enterprises operating in the transportation sector, which is at the forefront of pollutant component production, on sustainability disclosures. For this purpose, how the size of the board of directors in the transportation sector affects environmental sustainability disclosures and the mediating effect of the existence of a sustainability committee (SC) on ecological sustainability disclosures are discussed. For this, panel data analysis was carried out with the data of 47 companies operating in the transportation sector of European Union member countries between 2005 and 2020. The paper’s conclusions demonstrate that increasing board size and adding an SC to the board of directors will improve a company’s environmental performance. They also shows that the relationship between board size and environmental sustainability performance will be improved by the presence of an SC. The paper demonstrates that incorporating environmental sustainability initiatives into the strategic decision-making procedures of manufacturing and service firms in the transportation sector can offer another perspective to its stakeholders, policymakers, and sector organizations.