Diesel Industry News
Trend To
Either Automated or Automatic Transmissions*
By Frederick Kiel
Staff Reporter
Schneider
National’s safety director said he was “99% certain” the firm would convert its
entire 12,000-truck fleet to automatic transmissions beginning in 2007, part of
a growing trend among carriers of all sizes.
Fleet
operators said they are converting to automatic transmissions, primarily
because the trucks are safer.
“Automatic
transmissions are the No. 1 safety device at Schneider Nation,” Don Osterberg, director of driver safety, told Transport Topics
Oct. 30.
Schneider, which already operates 800 automatics, ranks No. 8 on the
Transport Topics 100 list of the largest
‘It is
99% certain that Schneider will convert fully to automatics, with a decision
expected in the first quarter of 2007,” Osterberg
said. “The entire heavy-truck industry
is heading that way, and I believe it will hit the ‘tipping point’ within a few
years to become the industry standard.”
“I
think eventually the day will come when the majority of Class 8s on the road
will be automatic,” George Grask, chairman of the
American Truck Dealers, told TT. “Far
and away, we sell more standards, but the interest and the purchases of
automatics are starting to build.”
Schneider
carried out an extensive test from May 2005 to April 2006 to decide whether to
convert. The company trained 120 new drivers
in two-pedal automated trucks and 120 in standards. It also trained 80 experienced drivers on automateds and put 80 others into standards.
“The
new drivers in automatics suffered 27% fewer preventable accidents than those
in standards,” Osterberg said. “Experienced drivers in automatics had 22%
fewer accidents.” Schneider bought 600
more automatics after the test.
“Those
statistics are amazing, especially the 22% drop for experienced drivers,” said
Rich Hanowski, director of the truck and bus safety
group at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. “That’s a hugely significant number.”
Osterberg, as did other truckers, said increasing
attention span and cutting fatigue were the two major safety benefits.
Safety
officials told Schneider it takes 75 pounds of pressure to depress the clutch
pedal one time, which a driver does 500 to 600 times a day.
“New
drivers lose focus because they have to watch the tachometer, which is usually
at the left side, while looking down at the gearshift to their right, and
coordinating that with their feet on the gear pedal and accelerator,” Osterberg said.
He
added that even experienced drivers lost “situational awareness” in shifting,
or by “losing” gear, usually sliding into neutral by mistake.
U.S. Xpress Enterprises, No. 21 on the TT 100, is the largest
firm to have converted its entire fleet to automatics. It has about 7,400 trucks.
Mid-sized
Bison Transport runs 850 all-automatic trucks across the continent from
The
versions growing in popularity eliminate the clutch pedal entirely. They are either “automated” standards that
use a computer to trigger the shift changes or full automatics with a torque
converter.
Todd
Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers
Associations, told TT: “I can’t say a trend exists, but I know some independent
operators are now buying automatics, which didn’t happen five years ago.”
Robert
Penner, vice president of operations for Bison, said
the Canadian company switched to automatic nearly five years ago.
“We
made our switch for several reasons, but safety was first and foremost,” Penner told TT.
The
other benefit was efficiency. “It
allowed us to do away with excessive training,” he said. “The technology has advanced so dramatically
that even older drivers were having trouble learning to handle the new
standards.”
Owner
also cited the fuel efficiency of automatics, which manufacturers say more than
makes up for their extra cost.
“Average
drivers have growing difficulty driving standards in dangerous situations, like
up and down mountains and making tight turns, but the new automatics are very
easy to handle,” said Claude Robert, chairman of the Canadian Trucking Alliance
and president of Groupe Robert, Boucherville, Quebec,
which includes Robert Transport. “In the
next five years a very large majority of Class 8s will become automated.”
*Article has been condensed/title altered