Ensuring your safety at every turn

Left to right: Saizo Takeuchi – General Manager, Les Bruzsa – NHVR Chief Engineer, Victor Trumper – Managing Director and Sina Milani, PhD – Mechanical Engineer.

At Advantia Transport Consulting, we are excited to share our latest industry tool, Payload Pilot. Launching on 26 April 2024, it is an online tool which is freely available to the heavy vehicle industry that calculates the Static Rollover Threshold (SRT) of any Performance Based Standards (PBS) and non-PBS vehicle combinations. Knowing the SRT increases operational productivity, compliance with industry codes of practice and more importantly, improves road safety for all.

Identifying a minimum SRT is now increasingly been utilised in the heavy vehicle industry and is included in the draft Timber Transport Code of Practise as well as the National Transport Commission’s (NTC) Load Restraint Guide. These codes of practice sets an acceptable SRT but offer little to no guidance on how to determine a combination’s SRT.

This highlighted an area of need for the whole heavy vehicle industry and led to the development of Payload Pilot. Advantia approached the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) who fully supported the project and, together with the Commonwealth Government, provided funding to develop the tool for the industry.

The tool is widely accessible to the heavy vehicle industry, particularly those without the technical background to generate their vehicle’s SRT but are required to comply with the technical nature of PBS and other similar requirements. Payload Pilot encompasses a large variety of combination types to cover the increasingly diverse range of heavy vehicle fleets in Australia. This includes heavy vehicles ranging from rigid trucks up to A-triple type 2 road trains.

free and Easy to use

Everyone who accesses the free online tool will be able to select whether they want to know the SRT of their combination in its loaded condition or how much payload height they can safely accommodate and achieve a given SRT. It’s as easy as entering in the combination’s specifications and the calculator will do the rest.

The results are be presented in a clear pdf report which is sent to the user’s email address.

The report also identifies the maximum turning speeds for a series of turns so that the driver is aware of how their combination will handle curves at speed. A significant number of heavy vehicle accidents are caused by taking a corner too fast. Try Payload Pilot now.

Calculating the SRT of a heavy vehicle is an integral measure of vehicle performance on the road and can be closely linked to road safety. It is shown that a 17% improvement in SRT can result in approximately 30% reduction in heavy vehicle crashes¹.

It is one of those tools that will have a significant impact on the heavy vehicle industry and all road users. The team at Advantia Transport Consulting is excited to be launching Payload Pilot and are looking forward to seeing the tool being used across across Australia.

Testing conducted at the Australian Automotive Research Centre, Anglesea Victoria.

Advantia conducts field testing

An integral component of Advantia is to ensure that any presented results are rigorously validated and accurate. This is no different in the development of Payload Pilot.

To ensure complete confidence in the calculations and results, Advantia conducted a field trial validation of the SRT assessment to make sure what is presented in Payload Pilot matches the real world. This testing was successfully conducted at the Australian Automotive Research Centre in Anglesea Victoria in early 2024, with a laden prime mover and semi-trailer combination (the largest combination able to fit on the tilt table).

This rigorous approach underscores Advantia’s commitment to delivering reliable and thoroughly validated solutions, enhancing the trust and efficacy of Payload Pilot in practical applications.

start navigating srt with payload pilot

Before your next journey, use Payload Pilot to generate your SRT, payload height and maximum turning speeds to maximise productivity and ensure everyone gets home safe.

For any questions regarding Payload Pilot please contact us.

START PAYLOAD PILOT

This project is supported and funded by the Commonwealth Government and the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR).