Trucking Fleets Adopt ADAS to Improve Highway Safety
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With the trucking industry facing risks ranging from worsening traffic congestion and distracted passenger vehicle drivers to the threat of nuclear verdicts, fleets are increasingly embracing advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to improve highway safety and protect their drivers.
ADAS features such as automatic emergency braking, lane departure warnings, onboard cameras and tire pressure monitoring systems are becoming more commonplace among motor carriers.
“There are some that are really taking off,” said Robert Braswell, executive director of the of American Trucking Associations.
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Braswell couldn’t share exact figures on adoption rates, but said the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s is currently surveying drivers, motor carriers and ADAS suppliers and plans to release data later this year.
More than a decade ago, deployed collision mitigation systems incorporating 12 different ADAS technologies and hasn’t had a rear-end collision since. Michael Lasko, vice president of environmental, health, safety and quality at Boyle Transportation, noted its preventable claims frequency is at an all-time low.
“We haven’t had a preventable recordable accident since 2019, which we attribute to the caliber of our professional drivers, our proactive safety culture and the enhanced visibility and intervention these technologies provide,” he said.
also has seen a drop in rear-end collisions after implementing collision mitigation systems, which alert drivers if they are following too closely and automatically apply emergency braking if needed.
“Rear-end collisions used to be our most costly accidents. Now they are the least costly,” said Jeff Mercadante, chief safety and risk officer at Pitt Ohio, which ranks No. 45 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America.
Mercadante also has seen the benefits of forward-facing cameras, which Pitt Ohio has used since 2011. Just two weeks after the fleet started rolling out the technology, one of its drivers was exonerated in a crash caused by a passenger vehicle that resulted in $34,000 in damage to Pitt Ohio’s equipment.
“We had the video footage. The police officers got the facts and issued the other party a citation for driving too fast for conditions,” he recalled. “Not only did we not get sued, but we also got paid the $34,000.”
(FMCSA via YouTube)
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to safety technologies, and different fleets need different solutions.
Steve Keppler, co-director of , said the best safety technologies for a given fleet depend on their operations, geographic location, driver capabilities and crash experiences.
“We tell fleets not to fall into the bright shiny bucket,” he explained. “Understand your needs before you jump in, and make sure it fits your needs for your operations and your drivers.”
Susan Soccolich, senior research associate for the , said driver distraction continues to be an issue in passenger vehicles.
“In FMCSA’s most recent Crash Facts report, they note that 54% of drivers in passenger vehicle fatal crashes had at least one driver-related factor, which includes driver distraction,” she said.
Lasko of Boyle Transportation added that, according to the American Transportation Research Institute, the passenger vehicle driver is at fault about 80% of the time in crashes involving a large truck and a passenger vehicle.
“That tells us this isn’t just a commercial vehicle issue,” he said. “It’s a shared roadway challenge.”
Many of the early adopters of onboard safety technologies are continuing to trial and add new products and capabilities. uses multiple ADAS technologies, including driver- and forward-facing cameras and Daimler’s Detroit Assurance safety suite, which offers smart cruise features, lane departure alerts and automatic emergency braking. It also is rolling out Stoneridge’s MirrorEye digital camera monitoring system to improve visibility and reduce blind spots.
(Cargo Transporters)
John Pope, chairman of Cargo Transporters, noted that even when ADAS technologies don’t prevent a crash, they may give a driver more time to react to an unsafe situation unfolding on the road.
“You may not be able to eliminate the event altogether, but you can mitigate the severity,” he said. “If we can do that, then we’ve accomplished something.”
Recently, one of Pitt Ohio’s drivers had an unavoidable crash caused by a passenger vehicle.
“The collision mitigation picked it up and started braking. Instead of hitting the vehicle at 48 miles per hour, we hit it at 22 miles per hour,” Mercadante said, adding that everyone involved in the crash, including five children, walked away from the incident.
Supporting Driver Coaching
Camera systems can enable real-time driver coaching in the cab.
Cargo Transporters, for one, is using driverfacing cameras that incorporate artificial intelligence to prompt drivers proactively in specific situations.
However, the use of multiple technologies means that drivers can trigger more events and potentially become distracting if not managed properly.
“Some of these systems can alert on similar or same actions,” Pope said.
The current lack of standardization across systems can create confusion for drivers already dealing with information overload.
“They need to react immediately,” Scopelitis’ Keppler said. “They don’t have time to think about what that audible alert means.”
The TechCelerate Now program is updating its guidance for collision warning systems and is working to standardize alerts and haptic feedback across various ADAS platforms.
“They’re voluntary industry standards, but at least it makes it a little bit easier for trained drivers to know that if you’ve got feature X, it is going to behave this way,” TMC’s Braswell said.
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TechCelerate Now, which launched its four-year Phase 2 in 2023, also is developing recommended practices on the wired and wireless protocols for replacing rearview mirrors with cameras, cybersecurity best practices for ADAS data messaging, and addressing commercial driver training specific to ADAS technologies. Recommended practices will be reviewed at TMC’s fall meeting in September.
Lasko of Boyle Transportation said driver training is an important part of any ADAS rollout, especially because different systems work, look and sound differently. It’s imperative to get out in front and train drivers on each of these systems, he said.
“If you fail to do this, drivers will make their own narratives and assumptions about these items, and in many cases, it will not be correct,” Lasko said.
RELATED:Fleets Navigate the Challenges of Driver Acceptance of ADAS
When evaluating and piloting emerging technologies, Boyle Transportation involves its professional driver advisory committee early in the process. “Their feedback helps us understand how a technology may perform in real-world conditions and how it will be received by the people using it every day,” Lasko said.
Lasko noted that some drivers actively seek out trucks outfitted with ADAS technologies when interviewing for a position.
“From a workforce standpoint, drivers increasingly want to work for companies that prioritize safety and equip them with the best tools,” he said. “To them, these things directly translate into a better quality of life as a professional truck driver.”
Cargo Transporters’ Pope said the fleet rarely receives negative feedback on the technology from drivers, who have become more accepting of ADAS.
“We’ve communicated about how we use the system — not only how it works and what it does, but also how we use it in the back end,” he said, adding that the fleet looks for opportunities to offer recognition when drivers have avoided an accident or taken proactive action.
Calculating ROI
While fleets are seeing long-term benefits, the return on investment for safety technologies can be challenging to measure in purely financial terms because some of the biggest gains are from accidents that never occurred or claims that were never filed.
“That said, we estimate that many of our ADAS investments pay for themselves in 18 to 24 months through reductions in preventable collisions, insurance claims and related downtime,” Lasko said. “In some cases, a single incident prevented can more than justify the entire cost of the system.”
VTTI research shows that some ADAS technologies can produce a quick ROI.
“For example, carriers may be able to see a positive ROI in adopting lane departure warnings within a year by preventing sideswipe and run-off-road crashes,” said Matthew Camden, director of the division of freight, transit and heavy vehicle safety at VTTI.
FMCSA has reported that trucks with both automatic braking and forward collision warnings were associated with about a 40% lower crash rate compared with trucks without ADAS, TMC’s Braswell said.
“If that’s the case, that’s [a] pretty substantial [ROI],” he added.
RELATED:Data Collection and New Technology Bring ADAS Improvements
Cameras are one of the top tools for managing risk and liability, and offer one of the most recognizable returns on investment.
“You can address crash situations and litigation pretty quickly with cameras,” Keppler said.
Pope noted that having footage can literally change the conversation if a crash occurs.
“You have a plaintiff’s attorney call, and we’ll say, ‘Do you want to see the video?’ You may never hear from them again,” he said. “It is hard to say how much money video has saved us over the years.”
Maintaining a strong safety record also can help fleets control insurance costs, adding to the ROI.
“Some [insurance providers] are offering discounts, or the increase isn’t as high if a fleet can show performance improvement,” Keppler said.
Braswell said updates to the ROI calculator on the TechCelerate Now website will be released this fall, making it more useful and easier to use.
“It can give you insights as to whether or not technology can give you a good return on investment for a given ADAS feature,” he said.
Nils Jaeger of Volvo Autonomous Solutions says self-driving trucks will complement the industry’s workforce as freight demand grows. Tune in above or by going to .
In addition to the cost of the technology itself, Pitt Ohio’s Mercadante recommended that fleets consider the downstream needs to support it.
“You always have to do maintenance,” he said, adding that Pitt Ohio receives a daily report showing if a camera is down for any reason. “Every morning, we go through that report and check those units out before they go back out on the street.”
ADAS sensors also have to be maintained.
“Let’s say you have a deer strike, for example, and it might have moved the lens on the collision mitigation system. Now you have to have it recalibrated,” Mercadante said. “If you’re in the Northeast and it is wintertime, you have the salt and snow and ice that can create maintenance issues.”
Fleets also must be ready to act upon the data that these systems provide, Pope said.
“If you’re using them and there is something you need to improve from a safety perspective, you have to be committed to work on it,” he said.
Pope noted that Cargo Transporters doesn’t always require a defined ROI to invest in technology.
“In general, if it is safety-related and it can somehow assist the driver in being safer in their operation or it is something that can enhance safety for the motoring public,” he said, “we will invest in those technologies much quicker than we would anything else in the business.”
