Improving Concrete Pump
Road Safety

This project sought to deliver Safer Drivers, Safer Vehicles and Safer Road Use, with respect to oversize concrete pump trucks by:

 

•  Better understanding associated safety risks.

• Reviewing existing Performance Based Standards (PBS) performance requirements applied to oversize concrete pump trucks and proposing more appropriate performance requirements.

• Developing nationally consistent operating and access conditions.

• Improving driver awareness and communicating appropriate driver behaviours.

• Understanding the latest concrete pumping technology, industry trends with increasing size of pumps (> 50 m), international standards and opportunities to encourage the use of better technology to improve road safety.

• Developing strong evidence to inform change by conducting field testing to validate computer models and development of better performance standards, guidelines for safe operation, appropriate operating conditions, and safety information to inform all stakeholders about concrete pump truck road safety.

We developed a road space assessment framework to assess various turning performance tests. Advancements in simulation methods enabled the calculation of tyre forces and slippage along with other dynamic factors while turning and produce highly accurate predictions of how a multi axle vehicle turns.

We propose an alternative PBS Level 1 low speed turning requirements which allows for increased tail swing by trading off frontal swing and low speed swept path limits. We assess the merits of prescribed turn paths versus road space envelopes.

We found that large SPV, despite failing PBS requirements are capable of successfully passing the local and arterial road envelopes; whilst PBS compliant semi-trailers with unrestricted access fail to meet the local road envelope limits.

We also found limited additional risk to road furniture or road users resulting from large rear overhangs provided overall road space is limited and drivers receive appropriate training.

Our study highlighted certain aspects of heavy vehicle driver behaviour during a turn movement. Semi-trailer and B-double drivers tend to encroach into oncoming traffic lanes to position their vehicle before the turn, SPV drivers can often continue normally within the lane bounds and still complete a turn successfully.

Field testing and operating studies assess a large concrete pump vehicle with static and dynamic LIDar scans to assess vehicle geometry and quantify the road space requirements during the prescribed PBS test and various road intersections.