Volvo Truck in focus at world congress for Intelligent Transport Systems

At the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) World Congress in London this week, a Volvo truck takes centre stage on the EU Commission’s stand. The truck, known as the Integrated Safety Truck, is the result of co-operation within the EU Commission’s Sixth Framework Programme where Europe’s leading vehicle manufacturers have worked together to develop joint solutions for enhanced traffic safety. The Volvo truck showcases the world’s most modern technologies within research for active safety – something that is called the ’virtual safety belt’.

The Integrated Safety Truck is a Volvo FH that shows what research has accomplished to date. It is equipped with the very latest future technologies for driver support; features that help the driver avoid an accident in the first place if at all possible. These technologies were developed within the framework of the partly EU-financed AIDE, GST, EASIS and PReVENT projects. Volvo’s holistic approach to active safety means that the various technical solutions have been integrated so they can interact with one another. The starting-point is that the driver should not be over-burdened with information:

“We must take the human being’s capacity into account. It is crucial that we tailor our solutions to the human being rather than the other way round if they are to function properly”, says Karin Svensson, head of a department at Volvo Technology that specialises in driver interaction and active safety.

Put simply, the ‘virtual safety belt’ is all about using a variety of sensor and monitoring technologies to create a virtual model of what happens around the vehicle. Based on this model, the system alerts the driver or steps in to act itself, depending on the situation. As Karin explains, “We use everything from visual warnings and audible alerts to systems that actively step in to avoid an accident.”

The EU project within the Integrated Safety Program (ISP) has been under way since 2004 and encompasses five projects, of which Volvo participated in four and was responsible for the Adaptive Integrated Driver-vehicle Interface (AIDE). Volvo is also the sole project participant to focus on heavy vehicles.

“The consequences of accidents involving heavy vehicles are often more serious, especially for other road-users than for the driver of the heavy vehicle. From society’s viewpoint, it is in addition important to avoid accidents that disrupt the flow of traffic and that may cause environmental problems owing to the dangerous nature of the cargoes being transported,” says Volvo Trucks safety manager Lars-Göran Löwenadler. “That is why we at Volvo feel we have a particular responsibility for being at the forefront of the drive to find solutions that avoid accidents and serious incidents.”