Former 60-Minutes journalist Ray Martin and inventor Matthew Vaughan talk to Fleet Auto News’ Caroline Falls in this podcast linked here about the revolutionary suspension smoothing Base Air system that Martin reckons is among Australia’s best and biggest inventions — akin he reckons to WiFi, the Black Box, and the Cochlear implant.
“I thought Matthew was just in the long line of these little Aussie inventors in a back shed who changed the world,” said Martin, talking about his impression of the inventor and the air management system that can be fitted to a truck’s suspension for a smoother ride for the driver and the cargo, reducing fatigue and damage.
Martin said he’s followed Vaughan’s journey since meeting him and first hearing about the invention in a coffee shop in Sydney 13 year ago. After years of development and iterations, getting patent protection, and trials with big truck fleets, Base Air was recently officially launched together with news that Paccar Australia — the importer and assembler of Kenworth and DAF trucks — has adopted it into their parts distribution network.
“Les Blenner, the banana king in Australia, he tried it and loved it and now he’s putting it on all his trailers. And he’s able to simply say, ‘It’s my company and I want it on there because I see it makes a difference, a difference to the drivers and a difference to the bananas,’” said Martin.
Martin’s Stock Haulage is among other big and smaller truck fleets that are adopting the Base Air system and retrofitting it to their trucks and trailers.
“Each time we put it on trial, every driver that gets behind the wheel would just notice a difference,” said Vaughan, adding, he initially thought it would be an easy ride to successfully bring it to the market. “Just go and visit one of the OEMs.”
It wasn’t so simple. Vaughan and Martin said the automotive makers, and their engineers, were more conservative than they anticipated about adopting outside generated ideas. They wanted to see demonstrated demand for the product.
As Martin notes in the podcast ABS, the now ubiquitous anti-lock braking systems, similarly had a long period in incubation before it was adopted.
The Base Air system has been installed in as many as 100 trucks and trailers in Australia, said Vaughan and Martin.
What makes the Base Air system revolutionary is its ability to keep the cabin and trailer level and steady on uneven roads and as cargo shifts. BASE is an acronym for Balance And Safety Enhancement.
“If air is required to be delivered to one side independently, if the weight goes on that side, we can do that, or we can remove air from the other side,” said Vaughan. “Other systems can’t do that. That’s what differentiates our system.”
As October was safe work month, and as the truck is a workplace, I asked about how adding the Base Air system to heavy vehicles could help.
“Fatigue is the biggest killer on the road. So what it does is … it gives the driver a much, much more predictable feel wherever they want to go. They’re not fighting the wheel,” said Vaughan.
Driver fatigue is reduced without exception, added Martin, noting testimonials of more than 50 drivers he’s spoken to. Among them, he said, one told him: “I’ve done this for 20 years, and every time I’ve done a three-day trip from Toowoomba to Darwin, I feel like I need a chiropractor. And, I’ve got out this time and I feel like I could go for a run.”
