13 August 2012

ATRI Releases Roll Stability System (RSS) Analysis

Kelly Messerschmidt
Technical Communications Manager
MSC

Last Friday, the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) released the industry’s first major comparative analysis of Roll Stability Systems (RSS) based on operational data from over 135,000 heavy trucks. The analysis considered factors such as crash rates and costs, as well as technology costs, of Roll Stability Control (RSC) and Electronic Stability Control (ESC), and it compared these data to vehicles that do not use RSS technology. This study is available at ATRI’s website.

The results of ATRI’s study indicated that in addition to RSC installation costs being much lower than ESC installation costs, installation of RSC technology in trucks might result in fewer rollover and jackknife crashes when compared to trucks using ESC.

The release of this analysis is relevant, as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently announced a proposed new federal motor vehicle safety standard that would require ESC on all new tractors and certain buses that have a gross vehicle rating of 26,000 or more pounds.