Dubai Municipality (DM) has ordered 11 impact protection vehicles (IPVs) from Gulfco.
The IPVs have been purchased in a bid to protect construction crews conducting roadworks in the UAE.
The vehicles feature truck-mounted attenuators designed to absorb the impact of rear-end collisions, thus protecting road workers.
DM’s IPV fleet is equipped to protect workers from road vehicles travelling at up to 110km/h, and feature auto-impact brakes, mobile temporary traffic management (TTM) functionality, automatic transmissions, and LED lighting.
Commenting on the technology, Clay Fernandes, business development manager at Gulfco, said: “In an ideal world, the safest way to work on a high-speed road would be to shut the road down temporarily which, in major UAE cities like Dubai, is a task much easier said than done.
“IPVs provide a sort of compromise between shutting the road and endangering road workers’ lives by lowering the risk of the work-zone workforce to [the] safest possible levels, while making sure that the risk is not transferred to road users.”
Gulfco also fitted the DM IPV fleet with cone wells and safety harnesses to aid the safe deployment and collection of traffic cones during the establishment and removal of traffic diversion plans (TDPs).
In addition to the advantages offered by IPV technology, Fernades emphasised the importance of investing in supplementary measures to improve road safety in the Emirates.
“Together with a high technical design, it is equally important not to abandon areas like investment in driver and operator training, infrastructure, [the] correct maintenance of roads, as well as research and investment to develop new smart technologies,” he noted.
“These advances must be complemented by policies concerning driver behaviour, and specifically initiatives aimed at raising awareness among road users for proper conduct on roads, encouraging a safety-first motoring culture,” he added.
