Gouse Named as Chair of IVI Heavy Truck Platform Committee
IVsource.net
30 July 2001

Bill Gouse -- Senior Executive Engineer at Freightliner Corporation and a member of ITS America's Coordinating Council -- has been named the next Chair of the three-year-old Intelligent Vehicle Initiative Heavy Truck Platform Committee.

Bill Gouse has been named the next Chair of the Intelligent Vehicle Initiative (IVI) Heavy Truck Platform Committee, one of four IVI advisory groups sponsored by the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America).  Bill is Senior Executive Engineer for Technology Planning at Freightliner Corporation -- and a member of the ITS America Coordinating Council.  Bill replaces Jack Gemender, Director E/E Systems Engineering for International Truck & Engine Corp., who served ably as Chair since the inception of the group in 1998.

In addition to Freightliner and International, participants in the IVI Heavy Truck Platform Working and Steering Groups have included Mack Trucks, Volvo Trucks North America, Eaton, Vehicle Enhancement Services, and Bendix.  The group provided key advice in the early stages of the IVI program that guided the US Department of Transportation in initiating the three heavy truck field operational tests now underway.  This government-industry communications channel operates according to ITS America’s Congressionally-recognized role as a “utilized Federal Advisory Committee” to the USDOT.

The heavy truck group was quite active in developing the latest round of advice for USDOT (see related IVsource article) and is now developing plans for its role in research and testing activities on future generations of systems -- those with a deployment horizon of somewhere during the next decade.

However, the actual role envisioned for Mr. Gouse is somewhat clouded at the moment, as Freightliner is in the midst of a major management shakeup since the ouster of president Jim Hebe.  The level of Freightliner’s focus on intelligent vehicle applications, as well as its involvement in national activities such as ITS America, is all up in the air.  In fact, in a revealing circumstance, Gouse was actually unable to participate in the most recent IVI meeting, which was led by the group’s vice-chair, Skip Yeakel of Volvo Trucks North America.

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