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Evaluating the deceleration rate of air-braked heavy trucks based on brake components and their adjustment has been well documented for vehicles not equipped with anti-lock brake systems (ABS). Though there are many non-ABS trucks still on the road, ABS is becoming more common, having been required by NHTSA on all heavy trucks manufactured since March 1998. It has been found that the stopping-capabilities of ABS-equipped trucks are often not well modeled by the traditional Heusser technique. This paper will present an expansion of that method to accommodate ABS-equipped trucks, a means of characterizing air brake chambers to obviate the need for lookup tables, and discuss some sources of uncertainty in the analysis. A comparison of predicted stopping characteristics to test results for one truck is presented.

The most frequently cited papers on driver abilities are somewhat dated. This paper reports on the abilities of a large sample of drivers as they negotiated a closed cone-marked course using modern vehicles. The steering wheel position, brake line pressure, and throttle application were monitored, along with vehicle chassis accelerations. The objective of this paper is to report on the physical inputs utilized by operators, and compare gender-specific and vehicle-specific results. Willingness limits and g-g diagram results are presented.