Trucks

Dynamically, heavy trucks are inherently different than passenger cars. In addition to the increase rollover risk arising from an elevated center of gravity height, heavy trucks possess additional failure modes such as jackknifing and excessive trailer swing. As a response to these issues, significant research has been performed in the last three decades to establish safety metrics for heavy trucks based on dynamic testing. This research has had an impact on determining acceptable size and weight restrictions for heavy vehicles and on the actual design of heavy trucks for increased safety...

There have been significant improvements in recent years in transportation and emissions modeling, in order to better evaluate transportation operational effects and associated vehicle emissions. In particular, instantaneous or modal emissions models have been developed for a variety of light-duty vehicles. To date, most effort has focused primarily on developing these models for light-duty vehicles with less effort devoted to Heavy-Duty Diesel (HDD) vehicles. Although HDD vehicles currently make up only a fraction of the total vehicle population, they are major contributors to the...

California is home to major international ports in Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Oakland, as well as the second largest border crossing between Mexico and the U.S. California’s highways are critical commercial links from these ports of entry to the nation and carry more commercial vehicle truck traffic than any other state in the U.S. Given the high volume of truck travel in California, it is not surprising that there is a serious shortage of truck parking in the state. This shortage negatively impacts economic productivity, roadway safety, air quality, and public health. This report begins...

The role of human capital and occupational factors in influencing driver safety has gained increased attention from trucking firms and policy makers. The influence of these factors, along with demographic factors, on the crash frequency of truck drivers is examined. A unique driver-level data set from a large truckload company collected over 26 months was used for estimating regression models of crash counts. On the basis of estimates from a zero-inflation Poisson regression model, results suggest that human capital and occupational factors, such as pay, job tenure, and percentage of...