Heavy Duty Trucking, June 2017
design consideration for future AMTs too And not just for over the road trucks One important factor that will affect future AMT design are the Phase 2 greenhouse gas emissions regulations says Gerard DeVito vice president technology for Eatons Vehicle Group These are very aggressive targets that are really thinly disguised fuel economy goals he says And OEMs will be required to meet them across all vehicle platforms This will lead to more AMTs moving into vocational applications as well as putting new features in AMTs such as the ability to decouple road speed from engine speeds and PTO options The planning process as it happens now is taking these factors and many others into account by over planning the next generation of ATMs in terms of memory and data processing capacity Another important consideration will be connectivity and vehicle to vehicle V2V and vehicle to infrastructure V2I capability This will be vital for autonomous or advanced driver assistance technologies and enhanced efficiency both in terms of fuel savings and in vehicle utilization Volvos Athey says these higher levels of vehicle integration of which AMTs are a part will be the enablers to provide customer efficiencies realized by V2V and V2I In particular she says the more automation provided in the system increases the system efficiency Imagine a V2 giving information to a vehicle with a manual transmission The only help that may be offered is a signal to the driver to change speed the driver processing that info and then the driver causing the change do I shift gears apply more fuel among other things Communicating to an integrated engine and transmission is quicker to act and therefore more efficient There is no doubt that vehicle connectivity will continue to grow says Melissa Sauer executive director corporate affairs and communications Allison Transmission Assuming that the security issue is solved and there is a secure connection through a telematics service provider or other means the capability of remote diagnostics and programming presents fleets with opportunities to reduce vehicle downtime to tailor their vehicles for their specific duty cycle and better manage driver productivity Sauer says Thanks to increases in computing power and the corresponding leaps in safety efficiency and ergonomics that will accompany that trend it appears AMTs will be a vital perhaps even indispensable tool for fleets competing in a faster and more complex operating environment Go to truckinginfo com readerservice and click on reader service 185 JUNE 2017 HDT 63 WWW TRUCKINGINFO COM
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