No truck yet with technology

The need today is to find trucks, which are ‘benevolent’ to the road surface, allowing increased loading along with a quantum leap in fuel efficiency and maintainability. The technology has been available for years throughout the developed countries, but the overloading quilt shielded the Indian roads from this technology.

The trucks today tend to reflect technology of the 1950s with a mismatch between road specifications and actual vehicle characteristics resulting in severe road damage. The current permissible axle load is 10.2 tonnes while most roads were designed for an axle load of 8.16 tonnes. Other developments like radial tyres, which require higher inflation pressures, have also not been factored into road structure to limit wear and tear of the surface.

Diesel engines of today actually offer 50% greater efficiency and have lower emissions of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. Since diesel emissions have higher levels of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, reduction in these have been possible through advances in fuel injection and air-handling systems. Current work is in the area of developing catalytic converters for diesel and exhaust recirculation to reduce nitrogen oxide emission. Lower sulphur fuels are another big step in lowering diesel emissions.

The technical parameters prescribed in developed countries provide readymade solutions for revising norms both for vehicles and roads. European standards differentiate between driven and non-driven axle loads on account of additional steering torque on driven axles while Indian standards have a common standard. Trucks at the cost of damage to roads, vehicles and goods have ignored use of pneumatic suspension. Similarly the aspect of tyre type and axle load remain neglected.

Recognition of revised axle load criteria, use of multi-axled vehicles, power steering, differentiation between driven and non-driven axle loads, availability of radial tyres, air suspension, gross vehicle weights is necessary to ensure low stress interaction between wheel an road surface to benefit both the road and vehicle. Costs in maintaining roads and vehicles will decrease on a life cycle basis and benefit movement of goods throughout the country. Legislative changes would need to recognise these factors. Investment would be needed to have a larger availability of in-motion weighment facilities to make regular checks feasible. In other words a holistic approach is necessary to improve truck-road interaction to control costs.

Concurrent with legislative changes, certain incentives to truck manufacturers are necessary to acquire the latest technology available. These could be by way of lowering taxes on more efficient vehicles. The efficiency could be in terms of fuel efficiency and road friendliness. While the former would mean better diesel engines, catalytic converters, turbochargers etc, the latter would cover air suspension, better tyres, improved brake characteristics. Both should result in improved power to weight ratio of vehicles.

The new trucks making use of the technology based on latest research and development will enhance road surface life, reduce maintenance costs of both roads and vehicles and also conserve fossil fuel, bringing down the pollution level. General improvement in road conditions will also bring about savings in fuel costs of other road vehicles, forever battling with potholes with the persistent ‘brake and accelerate’ staccato style of driving prevalent. The consumer will also benefit by reduced damage to consignments now being crush-loaded.

The writer is senior fellow, Asian Institute of Transport Development smnchak@gmail.com