So I’m driving a truck, a large M.A.N 18-wheeler articulated rig with a haul of rocks from a quarry in Fujeriah.
The load is heavy, very heavy, and as I try winding the truck down a winding mountain road, the trailer starts behaving like a pendulum and the tractor becomes unsettled.
The steering starts jerking, and I’m all too aware off a huge vertical drop on my right hand side.
The downhill gradient suddenly increases to 12%. The footbrake struggles to slow the machine’s huge inertia, and they quickly overheat. I urgently grab the airbrake and feather it to bring the speed of the vehicle under control.
It works, but my moment of panic had cased me to take my eyes off the road and the truck goes flying off the crest of a hairpin bend wile everything in my vision goes black…
Luckily I’m still here to tell the tale as even the most relaxed and well-insured quarry operator isn’t mad enough to let me drive a heavy rock truck over a mountain pass, or indeed anywhere.
In fact, I’m at the Emirates Driving Institute school of motoring where I have just tested out a truck simulator – the latest tool in EDI’s efforts to modernise training in the country.
Simulator
The simulator has been installed for a month or two now, but it is still going through a commissioning stage where the trainers themselves are getting used to it.
The simulator comprises of a dashboard from a real truck, complete with airbrake and ignition key. The ‘gear leaver’ is a little different though, appearing to be more like the sequential semi-electric transmission lever found in modern sports cars, and as such takes more than a little getting used to.
The driving experience however is very realistic, with positive feedback, or a robotic simulation of, back through the steering wheel.
Like other simulators that we have tested, the report it prepares immediately on finishing the drive can only be 100% impartial.
There can be no ‘looking the other way’ on the part of the computer – a fact that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the managers at the driving school as Peter Richardson, the technical and operations manager explains: “Because it can simulate an articulated vehicle, [the computer can] address issues, particularly in respect to adjusting the mirrors to look at the stability of the trailer, which is not always evident from the cab.”
He also explains how the simulator can bring up situations that it is impossible to recreate on a drive around Dubai.
“We also use for night time driving, and for addressing bad weather conditions. We can load up a range of different equipment – things we can’t just go out and do. Of course we can drive in the dark, but sometimes that is logistically not possible.”
It also isn’t possible to recreate mad drivers at will. On a simulated city road a virtual car hurtles into the side of me, and because I hadn’t checked my mirror it would technically have been my fault, as Arfan Raza Hiji, the trainer who looks after the simulator chided me about.
Plunge
Regarding my dramatic plunge over the mountain pass, Peter Richardson reminds me that this is a very common occurrence for loaded trucks – especially if you replace the hairpin bend with the approach to a roundabout.
“One of the main characteristics of any articulated vehicle is that if it is going through a curve over speed, the trailer starts to tip long before the effect is actually carried through to the cab that is actually pulling it. Such rollovers come as a great surprise to the driver as they are very dramatic, as the driver can’t feel it coming over. So we will use the simulator as a whole combination of awareness” Richardson explains.
With the number of accidents happening due to these exact circumstances, the role of the simulator won’t come a moment to soon as far as the dangerous roads are concerned.
Run in
As mentioned, the new kit is still going through it’s ‘run in’ phase, but it has already been used by the civil defence for training on the various machines in situations that would be certainly impossible to reproduce, short of setting fire to a large part of central Deira.
This actually opens up a new market fro the driving school: “We are increasingly doing more work with post-licence training on behalf of companies and organisations. In those circumstances the simulators address parts of the training that can’t be addressed on the road” clarifies Richardson.
Outside of the centre, instructors mill around the real-life trucks and buses, which of course, will always have a role to play. The midday heat makes it very difficult to actually absorb any information from an instructor.
Out of interest, the types of vehicle this school normally uses include 7.5 tonne ‘puddle jumper’ style trucks and school-bus style International buses.
Some time ago, we looked at another simulator based on a gantry crane at DP World. At the time, Julian Jones, the MD of a software company called Drilling Systems explained of a container-based simulator that he had set up for the firm:. You can plug it anywhere in the world – It supports voltages from 110 to 480. Its just plug and play. It was containerised locally.
They will work 24 hous a day. First time I saw one, the guy said ‘hold on to something or you’ll fall over.’ Your brain takes over. You can put in wind, and alter its direction. Anything else is good too, rain or fog.
He added that the instructor can safely try to surprise the operator: “You can put in faults, you can jam the spreaders.
You can quickly change the panniers out for a different crane model or different crane make.”
“So if you have different crane types in the yard, you can have different crane operations rail mounted gantry operations in the same day in a couple of minutes, load a new exercise and off you go.”
The role of simulation
For the reasons mentioned in the article, simulators are growing in popularity in industry, but not just in highway truck training. All manner of cranes are replicated with life-like controls and scenarios, while a whole cottage industry has sprung up building the equipment and programming the simulations.
Aviation colleges have obviously had this kind of technology for years, but did you know that all types of mining equipment, and even offshore drilling rigs routinely use this kind of kit today?
