The truck is a vital component of any transport operation, but it’s nothing without the driver. We, at Volvo Trucks, not only provide best-in-class driving environment to the drivers through our truck design, so that they stay safe and healthy, but also spend lots of effort on improving their knowledge, skills and social life through driver training, competence development, awareness camps, exposure to other markets, etc. Happier and healthier drivers lead to a healthier bottom line.
When Volvo entered into Indian market 19 years ago, driver’s comfort and safety were highly underrated terms in Indian trucking industry. The market was majorly skewed towards Cowls (front end structure) offering by OEMs, with minor presence of factory-fitted non-AC cabins. Feature levels of Cab/Cowls were at very low level. However, Volvo has been relentless in driving the benefit of driver comfort and safety in Indian market. Volvo Trucks only offers trucks with factory fitted cabin with AC as standard fitment and pioneering safety and comfort features. Volvo Trucks’ design philosophy has always been about being human-centric, wherein we put major focus on various aspects of truck which help to improve driver comfort and safety, thereby bringing in better productivity and efficiency.
Wholesome approach
Volvo has more wholesome approach when you talk about how we see drivers as one of the most important part of our truck industry. We not only provide best-in-class driving environment to the drivers through our truck design, so that they stay safe and healthy, but also spend lots of effort on improving their knowledge, skills and social life through driver training, competence development, exposure to other markets, etc. Volvo Trucks has been a pioneer in establishing a dedicated driver training centre (DTC) in India, which has trained around 90,000 drivers till date. We carry special events like Fuelwatch where Volvo drivers in India compete for achieving best fuel efficiency and the winner represents India at global level. We organise many events like safety camps, driver awareness camps, etc., wherein the drivers are educated not only about the profession, but also about health needs, good habits, computer literacy, communication skills, etc. We are committed to bring in the change in the way driving as a profession is perceived in Indian market; have succeed in whatever we did till date, but still long way to go.
Home-like workplace
We understand that be it a long-haul application or a short-distance mining, construction or distribution application, a driver spend most of his/her time inside the cabin, therefore cabin design is one of the most important aspect of Volvo trucks’ design. Safety and driver comfort are two important value pillars wherein we focus while designing our trucks’ cabin.
Volvo trucks have the toughest cab in the world, since it undergoes world’s most stringent cabin impact test for trucks (Swedish Impact test). Apart from that there are numerous active and passive safety features which either prevent accident from occurring or minimises the risk to the driver in case accident occurs. Heavy duty bumper and towing member on our off-road cab (FMX), aluminium FUPS on on-road cab (FM & FH), energy absorbent interior components, high illumination lamps, red safety belt, wide windscreen, are just to name a few. Electronic parking brake, which results into automatic activation of parking brake when engine ignition is switched off is one of the recent innovation introduced on Volvo trucks, demonstrating our commitment towards safety.
Talking about driver comfort, you will find everything inside or outside our cabin so inviting. Be it functional components like easily accessible switches and controls, easy-glance instrument cluster, sleek steering column for more leg space, air suspended seat, etc., or visual components like gently curved dashboard with forward slope, colour of the dashboard, etc., everything inside or outside the cab serves its purpose to make the driver environment more safe and comfortable.
Cabin ergonomics
90 per cent of traffic accidents are caused by human error, and often the source of errors can be something small that is often overlooked. A brief distraction or slight discomfort – it can be enough to cause a serious accident. From the driver’s seat, there are a number of things in your control that can have a big impact on the way you drive and your level of safety.
A good ergonomic design of a truck cabin helps to ensure that driver remains comfortable throughout his drive. From the seating arrangement to the visual and physical accessibility of all that he needs during driving like switches and buttons, information display, gear shifting, steering position, front and rear visibility, his field of vision, etc., ensure that the driver doesn’t have to take his eyes off the road while driving. Volvo Trucks through its extreme focus on these aspects ensures the best-in-class driver environment inside its ergonomically designed cabin like FMX, FM and FH.
Driving operational efficiency
Driver’s efficiency is directly linked to the operational efficiency, as they play major role in bringing the best of the vehicle to the field, in terms of productivity, fuel efficiency and uptime. An efficient driver tends to cover more mileage, consume less fuel and let the truck have better uptime (due to less accident and maintenance repairs). This improves overall operational efficiency of the truck, resulting into increased profitability of the business. Drivers are key to best realise the machine’s capability. While on side, we focus on designing the truck with highest capability, on other side we focus on developing drivers to realise that potential.
The Fuelwatch touch
Initiated by Volvo Trucks, the Fuelwatch Challenge is a competition in fuel efficiency and driver productivity that has become a mainstay event of the industry. It brings together technology and care, with the best trucks and the best drivers, to highlight the massive impact of fuel economy on operating costs. The role that drivers play is integral to achieving optimal fuel efficiency. Each edition of the competition continues to reinforce that training coupled with insights from Dynafleet telematics can significantly improve drivers’ performance and benefit businesses in the long run. Started in India in India in 2010, Fuel watch has gained a reputation of the most sought after competition among the Volvo tipper drivers in India.
Path-breaking I-Shift technology
The recent introduction I-Shift, Volvo’s automated transmission, on Volvo trucks further enhanced the driver comfort and safety of our drivers.
With no need to manually change the gears and press the clutch pedal, drivers can comfortably concentrate only on driving – we call it “Eyes on Road and Hands on wheel” experience. It uses its built-in intelligence to quickly and automatically choose the right gear at all times. And the customised software provides shifting skills that are impossible for even the best of drivers to match, resulting into saving of up to 5% fuel, improving customer’s bottom-line. Shifting to I-Shift is yet another testimonial of Volvo Trucks’ commitment towards driving progress for both the customers and drivers.
By G.V. Rao, Director – Product, Brand & Marketing, Volvo Trucks India