Meritor Wabco Vehicle Control Systems provided members of Congress, their staffs and federal agency employees an up-close look at advanced vehicle control technology during the recent “Ride and Drive” event sponsored by the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association. During the event, Meritor Wabco demonstrated its advanced vehicle control technologies and its contributions to advancing commercial vehicle safety.
“We must raise awareness of the importance of these technologies not only to the safety of commercial vehicles, but to the positive influence their utilization can have on operation costs and overall commerce,” said Jon Morrison, general manager of Troy, Mich.-based Meritor Wabco.
Technologies featured at the event were Meritor Wabco’s stability enhancement and collision mitigation systems. The company says its stability enhancement systems offer a multifaceted approach to reducing rollovers with three unique options: Roll Stability Control (RSC), Electronic Stability Control (ESC) and Roll Stability Support (RSS). The Collision Mitigation System (CMS) is an extension of the Adaptive Cruise Control/Collision Warning System.
The RSC system was introduced in 2002 and today is operating successfully on tens of thousands of vehicles across North America, according to Meritor Wabco; RSS, a dedicated trailer stability support system, was introduced later and has been engineered into many trailer OEMs at the request of fleets. ESC, designed to offer additional steering angle and yaw rate sensing; and CMS, an extension of the Adaptive Cruise Control system, both have been developed as additional offerings fleets can choose depending on their operations’ requirements.
With Meritor Wabco’s developments in truck-tractor stability enhancement, the company says the evolution to other vehicles has been a natural progression; the company’s stability enhancement systems are available for fire/emergency vehicles, and future applications of Meritor Wabco’s stability vehicle control systems include a larger variety of straight trucks, recreation vehicles and other specialty vehicles.
“Being the first to offer stability enhancement systems to the commercial vehicle industry, we have a great deal of road-proven experience with on-highway applications,” said Morrison. “This has allowed us to apply the technology to other vehicle applications where reducing the risk of rollover is desirable.”
