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The Pennsylvania Transportation Institute (PTI) operates the Bus Testing and Research Center for the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). The objective of this paper is to present a summary of important findings during the first eight years of Center operation. This paper presents an overview of the test procedures and a descriptive matrix of vehicles submitted for testing. A summary of test results is provided, which includes a distribution of failures classified by severity and subsystem type. The paper briefly describes the developmental status of including brake performance and emissions testing as well as future plans for the implementation of electric and hybrid-electric bus testing.

This paper investigates the tire-road interaction for tires equipped with two different solid rubber material definitions within a Finite Element Analysis virtual environment, ESI PAMCRASH. A Mixed Service Drive truck tire sized 315/80R22.5 is designed with two different solid rubber material definitions: a legacy hyperelastic solid Mooney-Rivlin material definition and an Ogden hyperelastic solid material definition. The popular Mooney-Rivlin is a material definition for solid rubber simulation that is not built with element elimination and is not easily applicable to thermal applications. The Ogden hyperelastic material definition for rubber simulations allows for element destruction. Therefore, it is of interest and more suited for designing a tire model with wear and thermal capabilities.

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the dynamic performance of pickup truck - trailer configurations, using performance measures adopted by Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement (CVSE). The pickup truck models are selected based on the US truck classification that segregates trucks on the basis of the vehicle’s gross vehicle weight ratings (GVWR). Three different types of trailers - gooseneck trailer, pintle hook trailer and three-axle trailer with parametric hitch - are utilized in this study. The truck-trailer configurations will be evaluated for static rollover threshold, load transfer ratio, rearward amplification, friction demand, lateral friction utilization, high speed, low speed and transient off tracking and three-point handling performance. These measures are based on definitions from Canada’s heavy vehicle weights and dimensions study.