Improving Tractor Safety: A Comparison between the Usability of a Conventional and Enhanced Rear-Mounted Foldable ROPS (FROPS)

Tractor rollover is the main cause of both fatal and non-fatal injuries in agriculture. Thefoldable rollover protective structure (FROPS) can help to prevent these injuries. However, in manycases, the FROPS is left in a folded-down position. Human factor and rear-mounted FROPS technicalcharacteristics influence operators' behavior in roll-bar handling. To improve the FROPS's comfortableuse, the prototype of an enhanced handling system was developed, and its usability was tested andcompared with a conventional FROPS. Usability was assessed with 93 novice tractor users throughan ad hoc questionnaire (investigating perceived effort, time demand, the posture adopted andsatisfaction) and observations (investigating effectiveness and efficiency) during lowering and raisingtasks. For both tasks, the participants perceived significantly less effort, less physical discomfort, ahigher level of satisfaction and less time demand while operating the enhanced FROPS. Observationsshowed that the critical issues that emerged for the conventional FROPS were eliminated by adoptingthe developed and implemented handling system. The developed handling system showed itself tobe usable and effective in making the FROPS easier and safer to be operated.