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The logistics process in Brazil and the world represents a significant portion of the cost of manufactured products, either for export or import. The availability of technologies that make the logistic process more efficient directly affects the product’s transportation productivity and makes them more competitive. This paper presents a telemetry model of commercial vehicles integrated with harvest machines in agriculture operations, allowing accurate scheduling of loading and unloading processes at the field. In this study, we introduce a conceptual model of a technological matrix, where the shared topologies of vehicle information processing help predict failures, identification of wear of vehicle and machine’s components. The opportunity is demonstrated to collect data from agricultural machines and combine them with data extracted from trucks. The sharing of information on farm machinery and trucks in real-time establishes an essential change in crop management in the field.

The several problems and bottlenecks faced users public transport users in big cities are a common knowledge. Among them agencies responsible for public transport recognize the lack of centralized control, the under and over supply, the lack of information to users and the non-compliance of scheduled trips. In order to work identified problems improving cities like Recife and São Paulo are testing systems named as embedded technology that integrate the use of GPS, cameras, centralized monitoring among others, retarding a deeper coverage compared to systems previously used. The main objectives are the comfort and safety increase of users and the freight logistics improvement. This paper presents the technologies being tested in Brazil through successful models applied in countries as Spain and Colombia, as well as the scope of bids and proposals for improvement of public transport.

New demands for the European Market claimed a new medium duty truck. Aim was not only to comply with new legislations, but also achieve better driving comfort and dynamic characteristics. The development of a new cab suspension was the answer given by means of an international project executed by the Technology Development Center of Mercedes-Benz do Brasil (CDT) with support of other technical divisions of our Development Center in Germany. High-level Teamwork Brazil/Germany at all levels from project coordination down to the plant assembly line was the key to reach an outstanding result with an extra achievement of weight reduction. Complete integration of all involved collaborators in Brazil and in Germany proved to be the main reason to get at the high efficiency shown during the development tasks. This article presents a brief overview of the undertaken development steps together with the challenges and the solutions given to assure the success of the international teamwork.

Because of the increasing need to reduce the time of development of new products, or even to evaluate the reliability of products, one has been noticing a trend to rationalize field tests through essays in ever more representative test benches, within a shorter period of time at a lower cost. In the automotive industry, the trend is to increase the reliability of tests in benches. The quantity of simulated parameters is increasing, what demands an ever increasing survey of data based on measurements of signals of deformation of leaves of spring leaf and courses of suspension in experimental vehicles.

Nowadays, the cares with the vibration and the demands with the comfort of self-driven vehicles became basic requirements to the acceptance of a new truck market project more competitive and optimizing solutions that reduce the problems with vibration and comfort. Inside of those, an evaluation of commercial prototype vehicle of medium load will be presented in this work, searching to reduce a flaw still detected on test phase. Measures as change of shock cabin absorber, changes of tires, system of stabilizer bar at the back axis, changes of the front springs and use of linked shock absorber to the mount of the engine will be presented. Evaluations, which were done initially in the vehicle, the diagnosis was the movement happened due to resonance that includes the flexural of the frame, associated to the movement of pitch of the power train and of the cabin.

This work reports the first stage in the experimental optimization of a medium duty truck, equipped with a new engine, with four cylinders and high power, concerning both the noise emission for the environment and the noise level in the passengers' compartment. In the first stage of this work, comparative measurements among the noise levels for vehicles in different configurations were made, in order to identify the most important sources in the vehicle's noise level, as well as to serve as indicative for project improvements. Each system configuration was analyzed separately, in order to obtain a comparative evaluation of the different vehicle configurations along the whole period of measurements.

Due to the growing need to reduce the development time of new products, a tendency to rationalize field tests through test benches, in shorter times and with lower costs, has been noted in recent years. During the 90's, such a tendency has generated, in the automotive industry, a great effort to substitute classic field tests, which until recently represented 70% of the development work, for bench tests, with benches well “calibrated” in relation to the traditional methodology. The present work intends to show the development of a test bench to simulate solar radiation and relative humidity effects upon parts and interior lining materials of truck cabins. The traditional test was carried out exposing the cabin to weather conditions in predetermined locations, or in a hot-house, monitoring the cabin interior for temperature and relative humidity variations.

Recent studies in the USA show 2800 passenger casualties/year, due to automobiles and light vehicles impacting against the front structure of medium and heavy trucks at speeds over 45 mph. This same driver or passenger leaves the vehicle and becomes a pedestrian. What is being done in the automotive industry to face this situation? What improvements can be expected in automobiles, trucks and buses in the XXI century? The results obtained in this work show that it is possible and very important for new projects and modernization of commercial vehicles (trucks and buses) to introduce a front bumper concept foreseeing the Passive Safety of third parties (passenger vehicles).