Isuzu Australia Limited (IAL) Chief of Product Matt Sakhaie deep dives into the latest Future of Trucking Report for 2024, The Way Forward, as part of a Thought Leadership Series.
Safety is still king. That’s the overwhelming finding emerging from Isuzu’s latest The Future
of Trucking report (FoT) data and with so many competing priorities for Australian
businesses right now, it’s comforting to see.
At the core of it all is a collective desire to see safer conditions for all road users, and in the
truck world at least, a laser focus on driver wellbeing in its many forms.
We’ve all watched the steady march of improvements in automotive safety technology over
the years, from seatbelts, airbags and stability control in the nineties, to some imaginative and
highly effective developments we’d never thought possible only a few short years ago.
What we’ve seen of late, especially in the truck world, is Original Equipment Manufacturers
(OEMs) and regulators working in tandem to lift the safety bar, ensuring cutting–edge safety
technology can be a more viable proposition for many brands competing in global and
domestic markets alike.
One glimpse into the cabin of a modern truck these days and you can see how far this corner
of automotive research and development has come. Powered by smart cameras and sensors,
the list of safety acronyms applied to modern trucks nowadays is comprehensive to say the
least.
Driving forces
Encouragingly, Isuzu’s findings indicate that all fleets are continuing to adopt technology that
leads to a safer environment for both truck drivers and other road users alike.
Alongside total cost of ownership equations, safety technology remains a headline purchase
consideration for many business types – from those whom transport is their business, to those
that rely heavily on road transport as a critical function of their business.
Undisputable, too, are the links between compliance observance and the winning of profitable
contracts, especially at the top end of fleet and logistics operations in Australia.
In some ways, safety technology adoption is as much about compliance obligations as it is
about ensuring people are kept safe, whilst also leveraging systems that help boost revenue
generation and keep people in a job.
It’s no surprise then that improved truck safety features are more widely prioritised by
businesses with larger fleets and given the scale this group operates at, logically there’s a
higher uptake across all major safety technology markers.
This is of course fantastic news. For so many reasons, the broader industry craves guidance in
this area and the safety-compliance example set by our larger transport fleets is as welcome
as it is necessary.
Active adoption
So, what are Aussie fleets using right now and why?
According to FoT data, active safety features, classified as ‘pre-collision’ safety systems,
continue to be sought-after, with many being ‘non-negotiable’ for larger transport fleets with
multiple trucks and a growing freight task.
Right now, the ‘big two’ are Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Autonomous Emergency
Braking (AEB), with 44 per cent of Australians fleets actively using ACC and 43 per cent
relying heavily on AEB according to FoT data.
The success of these features in the car world meant that these systems have been swiftly
adapted for use in trucks. Rightly so too, given the sheer volume of uptime experienced by a
working truck as opposed to a passenger vehicle for example.
Applying a short- to medium-term outlook, we can see that a combination of sensor based,
driver-aid technology, including Lane Keep Assist and Electronic Stability Control (ESC) all
came in high up the list of new safety technology that businesses are considering in the
coming five years.
The trend here is more heavily weighted towards collision prevention and ensuring the
longevity and resale of critical capital equipment.
What’s next?
When you consider how quickly we’ve arrived at heightened sensor and camera–based
solutions, one can only imagine the state of the truck safety space over the coming 5–10
years.
With the average age of Australia’s truck parc hovering at around the 14-year mark, the
ongoing challenge for transport and transport-reliant businesses will be the requirement to
update and maintain the veracity of truck safety and new technology features.
With more advanced, safer capital equipment comes greater efficiencies in numerous areas,
including reduced emissions, improved fuel economy and superior overall business
efficiencies.
More than that though and as the trends suggest, our ongoing collective value of on-board
vehicle safety technology can only equate to more lives saved along with safer roads and
working conditions for truck drivers.
For further information about the report, including a full report download, visit The Future of Trucking: The Way Forward at isuzu.com.au/news/future-of-trucking.
