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SPECIAL REPORT ON TIR, which provides driver training and qualifications to the logistics industry - Going trucking ... in a simulated setting
AFTER weeks of bad weather over Christmas and the New Year, and more forecast, one Beverley firm is hoping to teach drivers how to control their vehicles in any conditions using state of the art technology.
TIR, on Riverview Road, provides driver training and qualifications to the logistics industry. The company has just taken delivery of the UK's only Mark III Motion-based Truck Driver Training Simulator.
The simulator compromises of a fully operational truck cab equipped with the latest digital simulation technology to create life-like training scenarios aimed at trying to improve driver behaviour and skill.
The Beverley Guardian went along to see exactly how the simulator works.
Reporter Louise Nicholson, who took the turn in the simulator said: "This year will mark five years since I passed my driving test, and although it took me a couple of attempts to get there, I consider myself a reasonably good driver. I've never had an accident and I'm quite happy to jump behind the wheel. However, any driving skill and knowledge I may have had went completely out of the window as soon as I sat behind the wheel of the simulator.
"We arrived at TIR not really knowing what to expect and were led to what was essentially a classroom. Set up in the room was the simulator – three large screens positioned like the windscreen and side windows of a truck cab around a big leather seat, complete with gear stick, huge pedals, and all the other controls and dials that can be found on the inside of a truck cab.
"Thankfully, the programme was set to drive as if the truck were an automatic, so I could forget about the clutch and gearstick. And so, after some instruction and surrounded by driving experts, I set off on a programme that made it appear that I was driving on a motorway.
"It's a strange experience at first. You have wing mirrors so you can see the load your truck would be carrying and as I manoeuvred I could feel the weight of the load too. I managed to pull out onto the road and keep mostly in the same lane before some extreme conditions started being thrown at me.
"First there was rain, then heavy snow. I was plunged into complete darkness before having a tyre blowout, but somehow, I managed to keep going. It was the dense fog that did it for me.
"Concentrating on staying in a straight line, I forgot all other driving sense I had. Even though I couldn't see more than two metres in front, I kept going at a steady 60mph. When, out of the fog, came a multi-car pile-up. As you can guess the result was a collision and if it were a real truck I'd have been at the very least seriously injured."
But that's part of the beauty of the simulator, TIR sales and marketing manager Tim Watson said.
"The simulator lets trainees experience emergency situations such as a major tyre blowout and lets them practise driving in extreme weather conditions- all in complete safety," Mr Watson said.
He added: "It is designed so that the driver can feel different types of weather. We could teach people in a few weeks conditions that you might not be able to teach on the roads for years. How often do we get weather like we had at Christmas? Hardly ever, but a driver who had learnt on the simulator would have had some experience of it, making it easier for them to handle extreme conditions."
As well as preparing drivers for extreme weather, the simulator can teach them how to run their vehicles more economically and reduce fuel consumption while driving.
"Which is great at a time when being green is such an important topic," Mr Watson said.
These were thoughts that were echoed by one of TIR's principal tutors Edward Bell. Mr Bell said: "We can teach people the basics of driving large vehicles safely and in a controlled environment. To take learners out on the road to teach them about saving fuel, would be using fuel. I think it's fantastic."
"It's about teaching principles of driving. It's not a replacement of the real thing, but support," he added.
David Spjut, training program manager for MPRI, the company who created the simulator, has been teaching people driving principles using this technology for three years.
"We've taught about 25,000 people to drive using these simulators and in that time surveys taken across the driving industry have shown a 42 percent reduction in the number of accidents.
"There is the real dollars of the cost of those accidents, but more important is the lives that are lost and the injuries that people have to live with for the rest of their lives. If we can save just one person by teaching them to drive properly and safely, then the simulator is worth it," Mr Spjut said.
TIR has the simulator at its premises in Beverley for the next three weeks and response from young people training and the industry as a whole will decide whether they buy one.
"It's absolutely state of the art and genius. We want to be at the forefront of driver training and this is a big part of that," Mr Watson said.
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Weather for Beverley
Thursday 17 May 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 7 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 8 C to 11 C
Wind Speed: 25 mph
Wind direction: East
