Study by the German Highway Research Institute on the safety of mega trucks

The German Highway Research Institute is a technical and scientific research institute belonging to the German Federal Ministry of Transport. It published its report in November 2006 “Effects of Permitting New Vehicle Types on federal trunk road infrastructure”. The federal research institute looked at the effects that longer and heavier vehicles would have on the service life of roads and bridges, traffic flows and traffic safety. It came to the following conclusions:

• Additional funding to solve road infrastructure issues would be required (e.g. for ruts in the road surface, road construction and road geometry).

• Bridges were not designed for the higher weight of Gigaliners. The load reserves of existing bridges would be reduced by the use of heavier trucks, as would service life. Bridges would either require strengthening or replacing.

• Better safety equipment in tunnels would be necessary (e.g. due to increased fire load resulting from the larger payload of LHVs)

• Increased vehicle lengths will lead to greater accident risks because overtaking and clearing road junctions will take longer.

• Higher gross vehicle weight will have a negative impact on the severity of accidents. Crash barriers were not designed for heavier vehicles or for the impact of articulated vehicles.