Freightliner Puts Rollover Stability Advisor on the Market After Successful Field Test
IVsource.net
5 February 2003

Truckmaker Freightliner Corporation, which successfully piloted their Rollover Stability Advisor and Controller in a recently completed USDOT Intelligent Vehicle Initiative field operational test, has decided to commercialize the product as a result.  

Truckmaker Freightliner Corporation, which piloted their Rollover Stability Advisor and Controller in a recently completed USDOT Intelligent Vehicle Initiative field operational test, has moved forward to offer a commercial product based on the successful results of the pilot test.

Partners in the test were Praxair Inc. (hazardous materials trucking fleet), the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (which performed data analysis), Meritor-WABCO (a system supplier), and parent company DaimlerChrysler (which contributed to the analysis).  Six vehicles and 23 drivers participated in the test.

Evaluation of the system was performed on behalf of the government by Battelle.  Their results, outlined by Tim Johnson of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration at the recent Transportation Research Board conference, showed the system to be effective in improving vehicle turning performance and popular with drivers.  A 26% reduction in near crash events was seen, which has allowed Battelle to extrapolate crash prevention estimates for deployment of such a system in the national vehicle fleet.  For tanker trucks, prevention of 10 rollovers and 15 Single Vehicle Road Departure (SVRD) crashes are estimated, and for all tractor/trailers, prevention of 89 rollovers and 256 SVRD are estimated, for a total of 345 crashes avoided per year.

As a result, Freightliner’s motor carrier partner Praxair has become a  believer in the system – they have over 200 units on order as part of a major deployment of the technology for  their fleet.

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