EU Truck Safety Study Begins
Large manufacturers, including Ford, Volvo Trucks, BMW, Audi, and VW, are involved in the one-year research product.
A large research project to evaluate safety systems for commercial trucks has been launched in Europe, with several large manufacturers participating. The euroFOT study (European Field Operational Test) is an EU project with 28 European companies and organizations participating.
The goal is collecting data on how truck drivers behave in different traffic situations and how safety technology in their trucks can help them. Volvo Trucks has 30 vehicles involved, while the British company DHL Tradeteam and the Dutch company Nijhof-Wassink have 30 of their trucks participating. Each truck is equipped with five video cameras that record drivers' braking and response to traffic.
Volvo Trucks said Sunday that the trucks are expected to record 70,000 hours of data. "This gives us an opportunity to evaluate the benefit of accident-prevention systems and develop new systems in the future," said Carl Johan Almqvist, head of traffic and product safety at Volvo Trucks. He said analyzing drivers' eye movements can provide important information about what can distract drivers.