Meritor Wabco Vehicle Control Systems announced a strategic partnership with Iteris Inc. to streamline and simplify delivery of critical data about vehicle safety and performance to their mutual customers. Effective immediately, Meritor Wabco fleet customers can use Iteris’ SafetyDirect as a single point of access to monitor and synchronize driver performance data reports on braking, stability control, following distances and lane-departure warnings for individual drivers, as well as the entire fleet.
The comprehensive reporting includes event location, event date/time/speed, driver/vehicle and odometer reading. The agreement allows information captured by Meritor Wabco’s SmartTrac and OnGuard active safety systems to be available through SafetyDirect, an online application for analyzing data generated by Iteris’ lane departure warning system.
“Today, North American fleet managers have to cope with greater amounts of information from disparate sources on the vehicle,” says Jon Morrison, president and general manager of Meritor Wabco. “By integrating data from our company’s SmartTrac and OnGuard active safety systems into Iteris’ SafetyDirect and lane-departure warning systems, it’s easier for fleet managers to harness the information they need to meet their safety and business goals.”
“Iteris is pleased to be working with a commercial vehicle safety leader like Meritor Wabco to provide valuable safety data through our SafetyDirect system,” says Abbas Mohaddes, president and chief executive officer of Iteris. “The ability to collect and analyze driver performance data creates a unique opportunity for fleet managers to identify risky driving behavior and provide drivers with the training that the fleet managers deem appropriate to reinforce safe driving practices.”
The SafetyDirect application uses information transmitted from the vehicle by the fleet’s onboard mobile communications system via telematic providers such as Qualcomm and PeopleNet. Safety systems supported by SafetyDirect include:
• SmartTrac, a suite of active safety systems that can assist the driver in maintaining control of the vehicle in response to an impending loss of directional or roll stability;
• OnGuard, a forward-looking radar-based collision safety system that can detect objects in a vehicle’s path and automatically engage the throttle, engine retarder and service brakes when it senses an impending collision without immediate action from the driver; and
• Iteris LDW, a lane-departure warning system that uses a camera and onboard computer to track visible lane markings and detect when a vehicle drifts toward an unintended lane change.
“Capturing and communicating data generated by these systems is integral to Meritor Wabco’s ‘Pyramid of Safety,’ where individual active safety systems form a strong, cohesive structure,” Morrison says.
SafetyDirect is designed to deliver a comprehensive view of the entire fleet, as well as the ability to drill down to detailed information on individual drivers and events; fleets can choose from preformatted reports or export data to create custom reports, and they can compare the performance of drivers within a fleet, even tracking their performance in different trucks, and monitor each driver’s or group’s progress over time.
