[silversteed]

Originally Posted by Rahul Rao

Few points to note before we discuss this...

Thank you for listing down all the points that usually get missed, often wantonly, by the media at large and by casual observers.

Originally Posted by Gansan

...In India most of the buses are still built on truck chassis.

This is probably the single largest lie that has ever been peddled in the history of Indian CV industry, and it came from Volvo India's marketing team when they launched the B7R 9400 intercity coach.

A truck chassis and a bus chassis might share some components (like anywhere in the developed world) - engines, power train components, ECUs (yes, ECUs like Engine Management Systems, ABS, BCMs, etc), Exhaust after-treatment systems, lights, horns etc., but they are not the same - the spec of load-bearing components differ greatly, so does the gear ratios, calibration of various ECUs and a lot more.

Originally Posted by SmartCat

Indian trucks need:

- Air conditioning that cannot be switched off
- Better driver's seat with full range of adjustments
- Automatic transmission (AMT)
- More power/torque & stronger brakes
- Some sort of cargo load limiter that that cuts off the engine beyond limit

-Most of these items listed here are available, as options already. The question is, who is going to pay for it.

Automated Manual Transmission & AC:

Originally Posted by Ashley2

Attachment 1137623


Source : AL Press Release

Many things can be made to happen if the right kind of pressure is applied at the regulators at large, but that's a topic for a different discussion.

[gthang]

A crucial difference between private vehicles and commercial vehicles is the difference in percentage of owner driven versus employee driven.

For the vast majority of truck owners, maximizing profit per trip overrides everything. Truck maintenance, driver competency etc are nothing more than just good ideas.

Enforcing existing laws should be sufficient, but how? Can't ignore corruption and the small timer's right to exist.

Cheers

[IshaanIan]

If you ask me honestly I believe all trucks and to an extent buses also, should be banned from plying on the roads. Since that might be considered too extreme for many, I would settle for atleast higher powered trucks since they are so rudimentary in their acceleration/deceleration abilities, they tend to avoid the slow lanes and who can blame them when our slow lanes are filled with idiots stopping whenever and parking wherever leaving other slow moving two wheelers carrying people chatting with eachother casually, to the middle lane thus these trucks should definitely get a boost in power and braking abilities to both get out of the way as well as make it easy and reduce the stress involved for them to do so.

[ajayc123]

Sometimes I think that we need to have a system that for such a heavy lugging, we need to have a better integration between the rail and road.

Something like the long haul is done by the railway, and the proverbial last mile/town connectivity to be handled by the trucks.

Even though it's a passing thought that is crossing my mind, and can't assess it's viability. But when I think about it, I can imagine highways at peace, reduced dependency on fossil fuels and cleaner air.

But then who wants to topple the tax cart.

[hserus]

Originally Posted by sathasb

Springs coming with the trucks are not sufficient enough to carry the permitted load. Lengthening / adding spring / chassis reinforcement are differ from the trucks usage and load requirements. For example a tipper truck and car carrier. Thats why it is the first work done on new trucks after the delivery.

The manufacturers already provide customised truck bodies - not their fault if the most basic load carrying chassis is purchased and given to body builder shops. Significant overloading still does go on with enough bribery that Gadkari keeps speaking about this from time to time https://m.economictimes.com/industry...w/92810973.cms

[Reinhard]

I voted "No". But not because "its dangerous" (as in the voting option), but simply because there are practically no roads available to make use of the higher powered trucks.

First of all - the trucks are not in the fast lane for fun. They are there, because they have NO CHOICE. Left lanes are eaten up by even slower or stupid 2 wheelers / auto-rikshaws and failed government vehicles. Then - almost all the highway network around all cities - has horribly planned subways and overpasses. Its a continuous chain of crests and troughs laid out at will, with no regard to topography (obviously to win more contracts and to keep local politician happy). This means - the trucks keep on loosing steam on inclines & small vehicles keep on cutting into their path too often, before they can build any speed. What would they do then? The only choice is to stick to the right lane & maintain a steady speed throughout the duration as the highway passes near / through the city limits and wait for things to open up again afterwards.

I have spent too many years of my adult life travelling in the driver cabin of 60 seater buses. I know for sure the plight of the drivers of these buses & trucks on our highways.

Then - the more powerful trucks (which are also available from the likes of Volvo, Iveco, Benz etc to some extent in India) - will result in an exponential ownership & upkeep cost. Cost that will get directly passed on to the goods being transported. Eventually - costlier goods!

For the coming decade or so - the current trucks coupled with fast train networks for longer distance goods movement - is the best combination for us. Key is - Gadkariji - please wake up & fix the horribly designed & unmaintained roads. There maybe no corruption being reported or caught. But we look at the new / old roads and how they are made / maintained - we know its happening.

[TROOPER]

I think one point people seem to miss out is, local two wheelers and those ultra overloaded tata ace and at times tractors hogging the slow lane, with no service roads is the main reason truckers occupy the first lane on four lane highways. That's the case on the Satara Kolhapur stretch, with non existent service roads.

This is a rarity on six lane highways, but here, again the second lane is packed with trucks. And then you get car guys driving at 50-60 on the first lane .

Only solution is to build six lane highways at the minimum, with proper service roads on each sides. I doubt transporters would be willing to shift to high powered trucks, which could come with higher maintenance and fuel costs.

[bullitt1]

The answer would be a mixed bag as many have pointed out. No doubt powerful trucks are needed but then where do they ply. The highway manners are such that they end up using the fast lane which is irritating for fast movers.

Electrification would be good idea, but then who would pay for it.

[GeeTee TSI]

As someone who worked with a truck OEM in the early part of the career, I recall the then-specs of 2516, 3018!. It was striking that the tonnage is way below the horsepower for all the models back in the day . No wonder these trucks gasp at the slightest incline to low two digit (sometimes single digit) speeds!

Compare this with a Bharat Benz truck which today reads 1215, 2828. A slow and painful evolution by any measure and most of the old trucks still ply (slowly) holding up traffic. I do not recall a powerful modern (Volvo, Bharat Benz) struggle and hold up traffic as severely as some old relics

I fully agree that loading beyond the rated capacity happens but then what prevented provisioning the power for that! I distinctly remember official marketing material which said 'ability to overload'. As pointed out earlier the legacy power trains might be the handicap for our legacy truck makers

As a driver I am more affected by a slow truck blocking my way (worse, triggering dangerous overtaking attempts in frustration) than a slow truck in isolation taking longer to complete its journey. The former is a safety hazard and needs to be addressed immediately through enforcement and that has little to do with market demand and economics of engine output

[maddy42]

Originally Posted by Rahul Rao

Few points to note before we discuss this.

Every country has some standards for trucks.
India, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina & Russia
Rigid truck.
Should start on 18% grade and achieve 8 kph in 1:gear, should be capable of top speed of 80 kph on 1:200 gradient.
Semi trailer.
Should start on 18% grade and achieve 8 kph in 1:gear, should be capable of top speed of 65 kph on 1:200 gradient.
Australia has increased top speed requirement to 100kph to be achieved within 5 km.
USA
Should start on 1:5 grade and achieve 10 Mph(16Kph) in 1:gear, should be capable of a speed of 55 mph on 1:100 gradient.

Europe and most of the developed world
Should start on 18% grade and achieve 10 kph within 20M in 1:gear, should be capable of top speed of 100 kph on 1:100 gradient.

To achieve the minimum requirements for India we need about 4.2 HP/ton all our trucks are above this often 5hp/ton or more. This combination gives the best fuel efficiency between 45 to 60 kph.
To achieve the minimum requirement of Europe, 5HP/ton is enough, but operators
usually prefer 7 to 10 HP/ton so that best efficiency is achieved at about 65 to 90 kph.

Most trucks are capable of achieving 80 kph, but most drivers do not have the guts to exceed 50-60 kph except when there is no traffic and a km of clear visibility.

Most of our toll booths have indicative weighing scales and if a truck exceeds the limit noticeably the police near the booth immediately divert the truck to the police verified scale near the booth.
Rahul

Thanks Rahul. We see Overloading being the common complaint and reason for the slow speeds which is partyly true.

The partial blame (50%) of it falls on the engine, like you mentioned. I do not advocate for trucks doing 120 on our highways. But please can we have the ability of a truck with a load of say 20 tonnes to be able to get to a speed of 60 below 15 seconds?

Originally Posted by AnandB

As a truck owner our trucks are not under-powered. They easily achieve 80kmph and carrying 30-50 MT of normal load are dangerous enough. Maintenance needs to be done so they don't lose power which is an issue with old trucks.

Most of these might look overload but are no where close to the maximum rated load a truck can ply. My 16-wheeler trucks ply cement bags and you don't even see the truck as full but they carry 35 ton of cement and add 12-13 ton of vehicle weight.

Another example is trucks that carry other cars. They might seem long and heavy but common cars weighs between 1.2 - 2 ton on average and not even 10 are enough of a load that truck can carry.

Thanks for responding. The truck is able to bear the weight of this, but does the performance not drop? Can the accelaration be increased wee bit to aid for the same?

Example: Tata buses carry 40 and so does Leyland. Now they do have AC also. But why do passengers prefer to climb into a Volvo rather then a TATA AC bus for a long distance journey? Its the speed with which you get there, and never is there a situation where your bus is struggling to climb Lonavala ghats.

Similarly if the manufacturers develop or provide better engine options which are both reliable and capable, you would be able to do more loads between the factory and distributor for cement.

Originally Posted by SmartCat

Indian trucks need:

- Air conditioning that cannot be switched off
- Better driver's seat with full range of adjustments
- Automatic transmission (AMT)
- More power/torque & stronger brakes
- Some sort of cargo load limiter that that cuts off the engine beyond limit

Absolutely, that way the driver shortage and the complete absence of Cleaners will get negated.

Heck we do need better truck stops rather then the dirty looking once which we see doting our highways.

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain

Indian trucks seem to be optimised for running at speeds of 45-60kmph. That is the practical average I have seen, on good roads. This might have been enough 10-20 years back when many of our highways were 2laned. But on modern 6lane highways and newly built expressways, they are woefully short of grunt. When speed limit for cars is 120kmph, trucks doing 50-60 are a hazard.

Overloading is a bogey.
All modern toll booths have integrated weight bridges.


Absolutely in agreement with every word. I’ll add to this

- mandatory 360 degree camera
- top mounted mirror to see directly in front for the truck

Absolutely! our roads have improved. Since the time of golden quadrilaterals to our current Sagarmalas planned, so we cannot have the same donkeys and atleast deserve better horses.

Lastly i am ignoring a lot of comments on the Tata Ace's, the reason is this will open a Pandoras box. Its just too slow with loads and are a traffic hazard.

Maddy

[maddy42]

Originally Posted by IshaanIan

If you ask me honestly I believe all trucks and to an extent buses also, should be banned from plying on the roads. Since that might be considered too extreme for many, I would settle for atleast higher powered trucks since they are so rudimentary in their acceleration/deceleration abilities, they tend to avoid the slow lanes and who can blame them when our slow lanes are filled with idiots stopping whenever and parking wherever leaving other slow moving two wheelers carrying people chatting with eachother casually, to the middle lane thus these trucks should definitely get a boost in power and braking abilities to both get out of the way as well as make it easy and reduce the stress involved for them to do so.

I understand your issues here but when 70% cargo(which means 70% of the stuff we buy) is taken by trucks, it would really effect india if we ban these from our roads.

Thats the reason i started this conversation to find solutions.

[AnandB]

Originally Posted by maddy42

Thanks for responding. The truck is able to bear the weight of this, but does the performance not drop? Can the accelaration be increased wee bit to aid for the same?

Example: Tata buses carry 40 and so does Leyland. Now they do have AC also. But why do passengers prefer to climb into a Volvo rather then a TATA AC bus for a long distance journey? Its the speed with which you get there, and never is there a situation where your bus is struggling to climb Lonavala ghats.

Similarly if the manufacturers develop or provide better engine options which are both reliable and capable, you would be able to do more loads between the factory and distributor for cement.

Re buses: my experience on the road has been that almost all passenger buses are driven rashly and speed is not an issue. Even places like Himachal govt buses are driven without an issue or care. If buses/trucks are serviced and maintained as they should then power is not a problem. But this doesn't happen most of the time.

Similarly in my use case of haulage there is no benefit of reaching a destination an hour or so early because loading/unloading, driver downtime, maintenance, etc. will remain and thus a truck is not moving more than half the time of a day. The costs have risen exponentially specially since covid and BS6 and these 14/16 wheeler haulage trucks cost 40-45 lakh + currently. Add to that the maintenance has more than doubled/tripled because they are more similar to cars now (electronics), diesel, ad-blue costs. I personally do-not want more burden of added costs when the benefit to me will be negligible. I can say as long as my freight is increased proportionally (it doesn't) i shouldn't care but then every product will bear the increased cost so i will have to pay for it anyway. The national highways have improved immensely past 4-5 years but so has the toll. I pay more than 10-lakh in fastag tolls each month so its not like govt. is providing any facility at its cost or benefiting public from our taxes. Corruption is a big issue everywhere and there is quite a bit of undocumented RTO and police costs a transporter has to bear regardless if paperwork and everything else is perfect.

I said this in a thread about increasing fines to deter people from breaking traffic laws; the problem is proper, consistent and fair implementation. In countries like USA its not people are good that they follow rules on their own, its the fear of heavy fines and other factors that make people follow the laws. If the same people come to India they would be doing the same as us because they know its nothing serious and they can get away with it.

Instead of increasing power to these already 30-50 ton death traps there should be proper lanes for HCVs and service lanes and rules regarding the same be enforced strictly. Right now any incident happens its always considered the fault of bigger vehicle, be it 2-wheeler vs a car, or car vs a truck.

[Rahul Rao]

@maddy42
Over loading is rare done only in local trucks that do not cross toll booths.

I said engines are adequate, any better power to weight ratio and you will kill efficiency and operational costs.

In case of 16 Tr GVW buses both Tata and Leyland give multiple engine choices.
Tata 137Bhp, 160 Bhp, 180 Bhp and 220 Bhp. Leyland 160 Bhp, 180 Bhp, 220 Bhp and 250 Bhp. But the unanimous choice for AC buses is 180 Bhp, and for N AC buses is 160 Bhp. Kerala buses are one step lower on the power choice, as they hardly have any 4 lane roads. If you ask why, it is RPM in green zone from 50 to 80 kph, 5 km/lit for N Ac and 4.5 Km/Lit for Ac buses.
Increase locked speed to 100 and power option will move one step up.
Now what sale nos is Volvo doing in Buses Tata, Leyland and now Eicher each sell about 15 times more.
Trucks have to be even slower, as shifting load etc make speed dangerous, and the way bus owners target efficiency in 50 to 80 range truck owners target 40 to 60 range.

Real hazards are local 2 wheeler, tractors, and cars that cut lanes and brake check.

I often check the dash cam's of Buses and Refrigerated trucks that visit our workshop, and the arrogance the drivers face from car's and bikers is un believable.
In bus dash cams I have seen brake checking happen on an average of once every 80 km.

Another thing I noticed in dash cams is bus drivers in LH lane put RH indicator for lane change after seeing an obstruction about a km ahead, and cars keep zooming ahead from RH lane, then one decent car slows to the CV's speed to permit it to change lane, and some idiot overtakes this decent persons car from LH and changes to RH to overtake this CV with horn blaring.

In many ghat sections, the under run bar touches the road, and induces a over steer. In this condition the abs acts up, and driver has to switch off the rear ABS and brake very lightly to get back into control, this can happen at as low as 10 kph.
In the same ghats small vehicles do not respect hairpin crossovers and stop behind the stop line till the crossover is over, they argue with drivers calling crossovers as wrong side driving.

On 4 lane stretches a bus is overtaking a line of trucks from LH. Bus is about 20 kph faster than truck, there are cars and bikers who weave in between this.
A bus is usually 12 M long, and trucks have kept a 40-50 M distance between them, the weavers OT the last truck behind the bus, cut to RH in front of truck speed up, and again cut in front of bus to overtake the truck ahead. Very often there can be a small tempo between the trucks or a 2 wheeler ahead of the bus which is not visible to the car driver.

Until things like this improve there should be no mandated increase in engine power or speed capability.
Comfort and other facilities for truck drivers should be thought of.

Lastly our trucks are costly compared to other countries and have a short usable life.
Many American trucks like Mack or Peterbuilt have been on road for 20 years, have 4 million miles on their odo and have been upgraded to latest norms every 10 years or so. India does not permit upgradation, and 5 to 8 years is the maximum life a long route truck has.

Rahul

[bpm_km]

I normally drive on highways in Mumbai and Kerala and I can very much relate to the grief of having to deal with trucks constantly plying on the fast lanes. It's a real hassle and seems there is hardly any solution in sight as in any case, very few traffic rules get enforced. Perhaps the only way to deal with it is to continue defensive driving and not rush at all and eventually find your way ahead when you get a safe passage (until you get behind the next truck in line, of course!). Some years back, I was driving from Bangalore to Mumbai and though the highway on the Karnataka side was largely bereft of traffic, there was always the odd truck on the wrong lane. At one point, they had occupied both the lanes and I was on the fast one. Suddenly, the truck in front of me applied a sudden brake (yes, on the right lane and right next to the divider). I applied brakes on time and managed to avert a collision. And do you want to know why the truck stopped? He was waved to stop by a police constable, who was standing on the divider. So while driving, better be safe than sorry.

[IshaanIan]

Originally Posted by maddy42

I understand your issues here but when 70% cargo(which means 70% of the stuff we buy) is taken by trucks, it would really effect india if we ban these from our roads.

Honestly if heavy items could be restricted to railroads, and heavy taxes and fees were levied on construction projects that require trucks roaming about to encourage them to locally source as much material as possible, then we can make do with pick up trucks for whatever us regular folk require. Apart from that if government can partner with Tata or Maruti or something to make a peoples car like a Nano 2.0 but one that works properly (not with ridiculously mismatched gear ratios, horrible clutch and silly ergos), then people can be encouraged to instead of saving up to buy a splendor every 5 years, simply buy one solid car that works for 20 years.

At the end of the day it is impossible to expect these trucks and buses to move in the slow lane, impossible to expect them to have working or atleast even visible and not caked in mud tail-lamps, impossible to see ahead of them, they are literally just toppled over buildings on the roads and I feel they ought to be relegated to the history books with a complete holistic overhaul of the goods transportation sector.