Assessing the health of driving license applicants has traditionally involved an eye test and little else. However, a project underway at United Arab Emirates (UAEU) is set to make the process more comprehensive.

In a bid to offer a more thorough assessment of a driving license applicant’s health, a team from UAEU is developing a new health screening system to assess an applicant’s full health profile before a driving license is issued. 

The IDHS³ system, also referred to as an Integrated Driver’s Health and Safety Screening System for Traffic and Licensing Authorities, will be able to collect the driver’s health-related data from different sources such as hospital and medical centers, identity and passport control databases and cloud servers. In turn, this will help the traffic licensing authorities to be more careful and vigilant in issuing motor licenses.

“The purpose of our proposed research is to keep motor driver’s health and fitness issues as first priority before and after issuing driving licenses,” explains senior instructor at UAEU Zulfiqar M. Aslam, who acted as the research supervisor for the project. “Presently, applying for a driving licence in UAE only requires a basic vision test. On the other hand, it has been observed globally that people who possess a driving license might not be physically or mentally fit for driving because of an acute or unknown heath condition or problems – such as glaucoma, night vision problem, epilepsy, mental stress, high blood pressure, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, heart problems, Alzheimer’s and nomophobia (a proposed name for the phobia of being out of mobile phone). These conditions can lead to serious accidents causing road deaths and injuries to both parties, as well as the destruction of public and private property.”

The two students behind the project are Wala Walid Khalil and Reem Ahmed AlMujaini, both students of Management Information Systems. Khalil came up with the initial idea in October and, with the help of instructor Aslam, transformed the idea into an abstract before starting work on the project. The team is now working on a prototype.

The duo hope that the system, which was selected as a lead project at the Ankabut User’s Meeting international conference in Abu Dhabi on November 21, part of Innovation Week, will go some way towards reducing the number of road accidents in the UAE if it is brought to market.