The ATA’s Industry Technical Council has developed a ‘proof of concept’ project in the form of a rigid drawbar converter dolly, which does away with the typical hinged drawbar. During the ATA’s first online Technical and Maintenance Conference, NTI Transport & Logistics Risk Engineer, Adam Gibson, explained the concept.
The project was developed by the ATA’s Industry Technical Council and manufactured by MaxiTRANS.
In this video, NTI Transport & Logistics Risk Engineer, Adam Gibson, explained the concept. “It was a collaboration between the ITC, manufacturers and operators to test, could we do converter dollies differently? Is the way we’re doing it necessarily the best way?” he said.
Though problems like cracking and axles not load sharing have been typically named as possible challenges, Gibson said that the engineering says otherwise. To test if the concept could work, a prototype has been built.
Now it will be put to the ultimate test, when it hits the road with operators along the east coast, before heading into Western Australia, to see how it performs out in the real world.