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Due to their inherent advantages, goods transports on the road are indispensable. The permanently increasing competitive and legal requirements demand the exploitation of all technological and engineering possibilities. The high standard of commercial vehicle technology now attained means that new ways must be found of utilizing the remaining scope for further progress, e.g. by increased application of intelligent vehicle systems. This contribution describes such electronic systems. These systems will assist and relieve stress from the driver. Moreover, the possibilities of electronic intelligence will lead to an outstanding increase of active safety and transport efficiency of future vehicle generations [1].

The settings of adaptive suspension elements may be switched from a comfortable “soft” characteristic to a safe and “firm” characteristic. Thus the possibility is given to not only improve the ride comfort, but the dynamic driving behavior as well, since no compromise must be made between these two criteria when tuning the suspensions. Such systems seem to be very promising for commercial vehicles, as - because of their changing loading conditions - it is very difficult to design an optimal suspension system using conventional springs and dampers. This paper describes the influence of shock absorbers and air springs with variable characteristics on the ride comfort and the dynamic behavior of a 15-t-truck by investigations done with a simulation system. A series production vehicle without adaptive suspension elements serves as basis. At first the results of measurements and simulations are compared and show a very good concurrence.

The consequent means towards improved enhancement of the safety of commercial vehicles will in future times require more and more electronic intelligence, in case a distinct optimization of the systems will not be possible with conventional means. In forefront, endeavours are aimed at the improvements of the functions of the system in regard to driving safety, as well as driver stress relief at lowest possible costs, in order to increase the total cost effectiveness of commercial vehicles. Starting with currently implemented electronic systems up to systems now under development, a continuous development of standalone electronics up to integrated electronic compounding is the current trend. This trend shows advantages of reduced wiring and the number of sensors while it increases the function at the same time.

“Technical fleet management” as an aspect of fleet management refers to those measures and actions taken in order to monitor and maintain reliable operation of the vehicle, thus supporting fleet, workshop and drivers. Various on-board systems record and process the required data. Mobile data communication systems are available for remote monitoring. Such systems are used in the commercial domain of fleet management with a higher information exchange frequency, and thus, for economical reasons, technical fleet management must utilize these existing systems for information transmission. Due to the complexity of technical fleet management systems, hardly any suppliers of complete systems exist on the market. Therefore, an intense cooperation of different suppliers is needed for overall design and development..

The development of electronic intelligence and the continually increasing intensive knowledge of driving dynamics make it possible nowadays to conceive intelligent vehicle systems and to make such systems available for series production, which are capable of substantially enhancing the active safety of commercial vehicles. Through the implementation of advanced subsystems, which can be integrated as software packages into the basic electronic braking system, it will be possible to expand the possibilities of introducing assistance systems, which are capable of both, helping and relieving the driver from stress in critical situations. The driver will be relieved of all duties which could divert his attention or cause severe stress. As a consequence, the active safety of commercial vehicles will be considerably increased.