Scania Australia stock prime movers of more than 440hp will get Autonomous Emergency Braking as standard fitment.

SCANIA AUSTRALIA began fitting its stock vehicles imported into Australian since late last year (2015) with Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB), now it’s announced that all trucks with an output of 440hp or more will be fitted with AEB.

Scania said, the Advanced Emergency Braking system is part of a safety upgrade that includes Lane Departure Warning and Adaptive Cruise Control. AEB integrates the radar and camera functions of both systems to “provide autonomous emergency braking warning and intervention, to prevent two moving vehicles colliding, or the Scania truck running into stationary traffic”.

This improved safety suite is now fitted to all stock prime movers destined for regular line-haul and distribution work, with engine outputs of 440hp and above, “across the full P, G and R-series ranges of cabs”. The Advanced Emergency Braking system can be specified for the majority of other on-road vehicles in the Scania truck range, where it is not fitted as standard.

“We wanted to offer our customers this potentially life-saving feature and so we made it standard on stock vehicles with outputs of 440 hp and above,” says Ian Butler, Scania Australia’s New Vehicle Technical Support Specialist.

When activated, the Advanced Emergency Braking system offers three stages of protection: Initially, when the system detects the possibility of a collision with a vehicle in front, it will sound an acoustic signal and illuminate a red warning light on the dashboard. If the driver does not react, and the risk remains, the AEB system begins to apply the brakes gently. If there is still no response, for instance if the driver has fallen asleep or has been incapacitated, then the AEB system applies the brakes with full force in order to attempt to avoid an impact with a slower moving or stationary vehicle that it has detected.

The driver can interrupt the warnings or braking by pressing the AEB switch on the instrument panel, or by applying the brake pedal, or alternatively if he judges it safer to take positive action, he may apply the accelerator pedal, including activating the kickdown, and steer away to avoid the impact. AEB is active at speeds in excess of 15 km/h.