The Mid-America Trucking Show has earned a well-deservedreputation over the years as the industry’s premier showcase for new productannouncements.

This year’s event was no different, although the news was morein the quantity of products introduced than in the significance of engineeringadvancements.

Certainly there was product news. Paccar’s operatingcompanies, Kenworth and Peterbilt, both presented versions of medium-dutyhybrid trucks aimed at the utility market. International announced theavailability of trucks with its own heavy-duty engines. Vanguard described newmaterial technology for its trailer interiors. All significant advancements.

Of the almost 40 press conferences at the event, one standsout in my mind. Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems received the Frost andSullivan Customer Value Leadership Award in recognition of the advances thecompany has made in heavy-truck safety enhancement technology. In an interviewwith Joe McAleese, president and CEO of Bendix, Sandeep Kar, Frost &Sullivan senior industry analyst – advanced heavy-truck technologies, describedthe company as having “emerged as a prime mover in advanced heavy-truck safetyenhancement technologies.”

Kar asked about the strengths of Bendix relative totechnology applications. McAleese suggested that his company’s success as adeveloper of advanced safety technologies had to do with its ability to gaugecustomer demands for advanced solutions that offered a comprehensive return oninvestment and its desire to complement the design philosophies of the truckmakers.

“As an example, Bendix has been able to take advancedtechnologies and put them on a platform, such as ABS, that is standardequipment,” he said. “By doing so, we ended up getting a robust and scalabletechnology platform at a minimal incremental cost and leveraging it fully tospawn a range of highly effective safety solutions.”

Bendix described several new safety-related developmentsbeginning with the release of the latest version of its ACom diagnosticssoftware to help technicians train, diagnose, repair, troubleshoot andrecalibrate components that make up its antilock braking and stability systems.The software is available at no charge at www.mybendix.com.

Kevin Romanchok, the company’s electronic product linedirector, presented an update on its ESP stability system and described theprogress it has made on adaptive cruise control (ACC), which builds on itsoriginal ESP stability system. He said that sales of the Bendix ESP system grew800 percent last year. Bendix expects to exceed 40,000 Bendix ESP-equippedvehicles on the road by the end of 2007. Mack and Volvo have made ESP standardwith no delete option on highway vehicles. The ACC system will enable a vehicleto maintain a set interval, based on time, between the truck and a leadingvehicle. To help decelerate the vehicle and keep the intended followingdistance, ACC will use throttle reduction, engine retarder, and brakeapplication – all automatically. Romanchok said fleet testing of ACC isunderway and he anticipates market availability in about one year.

McAleese said, “We will see regulatory action relatedto stability control systems in passenger cars all the way up to light trucks.There is even some discussion related to heavier vehicles. Regardless ofregulatory actions, our drive is to offer cost-effective safety enhancementsolutions to the fleets, and we do not require regulations to get thesetechnologies implemented. I do not like to rely on regulations to drive themarket. The market should be driven by a good value proposition to theend-user. To add more costs on the fleets and erode their profit margins doesn’tmake much sense. To give them a solution that pays back rapidly, enhancessafety, improves operating efficiencies, and at the same time, secures theircargo, vehicles and drivers, is our primary focus.” Congratulations Bendix. Itwas an award well deserved.