Every year over 1.35 Million lives are lost to road accidents. Trucks are probably the most dangerous vehicles on public roads due to their size and mass. 15% of all accidents involve trucks and the majority of victims are car occupants. Most of these accidents happen outside of urban areas at high speeds. In the dawn of autonomous drive and electromobility the trucking industry has the opportunity to reinvent their products. Volvo Trucks is a company that has Safety in its DNA. Future Volvo trucks could be tailored around Safety to save lives and bring justice to this core value. Autonomy has the potential to make road accidents history in the long run. Before that becomes a reality, society will face a transitioning period where autonomous vehicles will share the space with manually driven vehicles. Communication between human and machine will be more important that ever. Product Designers must account also for situations where an accident is unavoidable. The focus of this project is to explore what safety means for the human eye. How do we perceive safety visually and how do we create trust? Trucks are versatile products built with modularity in mind. Manufacturers are responsible for delivering a capable tractor unit. Trailers and other accessories are built externally. Throughout the process of this project a holistic approach was adopted. The only way to have full control over the product experience is to design a complete product: trailer and tractor unit. Volvo Trucks experts are consulted along the way covering key points of interest such as Passive Safety, User Experience Design and Aerodynamics. Benchmarking of existing concepts sets a starting point. Initial explorations question the architecture of conventional trucks. Different set-ups and layouts are proposed. Each decision is made based on various safety needs of the future semi-autonomous traffic. Analog sketches and digital renderings of design proposals build the way towards a key sketch. The chosen design direction is further developed and built in CAD. The vehicle is designed with an eye on its environment. The link between truck and car, truck and human is the core of this project. This vehicle sheds light on the mystery of how autonomous vehicles will blend with traffic as it is known today. Focusing on long haul highway routs Volvo VISE is designed to execute hub to hub transport services autonomously. Signals used to communicate in road traffic are translated to the digital age. By being able to understand its environment and react to it, Volvo VISE comes to life with a soul of its own. Through various sensors and autonomous technology the vehicle measures each traffic situation and earns the trust of its surroundings through clear communication of intent. With soft and generous shapes the exterior design describes a friendly vehicle that wins over its audience at the first glance. Volvo VISE has a deeper understanding of safety. Beneath the skin and besides its capability to communicate, the vehicle is equipped with several passive safety features, taking control in every situation. Volvo VISE ensures road safety for all.

Background: The transport industry is facing new challenges such as increased competition between the actors and an increasing shortage of truck drivers. Implementing new technologies such as autonomous driving can represent a solution for companies to increase their competitiveness and gains. However, implementing such an innovative solution leads to a certain resistance to change that has to be dealt with, as well as concerns about the current jobs within the industry. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to assess the resistance to change linked to implementing this technology within Logistics Service Providers, provide solutions to overcome this resistance, as well as assessing the impact on jobs. Method: An inductive multiple case study has been used to conduct this research. The data was gathered from 12 semi-structured interviews with experts related to the transport industry. Then, thematic data analysis has been used to provide insights. Conclusion: The results show that the resistance is characterized by barriers to the technology and the resistance from the people, that support and communication is the key factor for successful implementation and that the truck driving professions will evolve considerably.

If automated vehicles are to be introduced on public roads, they need to be able to communicate appropriately with other road users. This can be done using various interfaces and by communicating various messages. Previous research has mainly investigated design of such communication for automated passenger cars. It is, however, currently largely unknown how corresponding communi- cation should be designed for heavy automated vehicles. Scania and RISE are collaborating in a research project on what signals need to be displayed for heavy automated vehicles when they get introduced to public roads. This thesis focuses on design of an external human-machine interface (eHMI) that conveys that a truck is operated in automated driving mode. It explored various types of message contents (abstract lights, text, symbols) as well as the effect of placement of eHMI (grille, under windshield, above windshield) and distance on understanding of the message. The emphasis was on the communi- cation to pedestrians in a crossing scenario. The thesis work was split into three design iterations according to the ”De- sign Thinking” methodology. The first iteration investigated the most preferred content types. The second investigated the effect that the screen placement on the truck had on the comprehensibility of the sign with regards to distance. The third and last iteration meant creating physical prototypes of low fidelity corresponding to the concepts from the second iteration, installing them on a truck and then evaluating them on a test track. The final evaluation was of an exploitative character and involved experts in the field of HMI design. The results showed that it was hard to interpret signals based on colors and abstract lights only. Symbols were also hard to interpret and should only be used when there is a standard for symbols for automated vehicles. Using text, on the other hand, made the message more clear and was easier to understand independently of the distance. As for the placement of the eHMI, the results show that there are preferences to using the middle and upper part of the truck.

The level of autonomation and the number situations which an autonomous vehicle can handle continuously increases. However, even fully autonomous vehicles will need human support, especially when system failures occur. Remote operations enables vehicles to operate autonomously when possible and keeps the human in the loop to assist when needed by allocating them to a remote operating center (ROC). It is a new field within autonomous trucks and little research has thus been conducted on the topic. By taking an approach from the fields of aviation and maritime, where remote operations has been researched for longer, the study aims to transfer knowledge to road freight and to enable remote operations at a management mode. The focus of the study is thus to investigate which information is important for the remote operator (RO) when manual procedures are automated, and to define recommendations for how a ROC could be designed from a human-automation teamwork and situational awareness perspective. The results of the conducted interviews find that the RO first and foremost needs information regarding failures of the automation, including how the failures could be solved. However, it also confirms previous research emphasizing interactive interfaces to avoid passive monitoring, as that is likely to cause an out-of-the-loop problem. Furthermore, recommendations which could be defined regarding the design of a ROC include incorporating both verbal and digital communicational abilities, and the possibility to collaborate, both internally and externally. Lastly, the results show an importance to differentiate between different modes of remote operations in the ROC to remain clear of the responsible actor and avoiding automation surprise.

The technology of autonomous vehicles has the potential to provide a significant number of safety, efficiency and environmental benefits to those who are able to harness it. As such, it is only natural that the company which is the subject of this project should want to explore this field, since the company prides itself on being at the cutting edge of both environmental sustainability and technological advancement. This inquiry was therefore launched in order to amass a sufficient knowledge base to enable management to make informed decisions about the possible future implementation of autonomous trucks, specifically to handle the logistics flow between their production facility in Skellefteå, Sweden and the nearby harbour. The first step to achieving this objective consisted of an exploration of the state of autonomous vehicle technology as well as the regulatory framework in Sweden for operating such systems on public roadways. Information was gathered from a vast array of sources, including academic literature, official reports from various authorities, journalistic publications as well as interviews with individuals with competence or experience within this field. While the regulatory situation in Sweden at the moment offers no legal way to operate autonomous vehicles on public roads, it is possible to be granted permission to perform trials of this technology under certain conditions. An investigation was undertaken to determine whether this might be a viable option for the company’s case. As such, hazard analysis was performed on the proposed route in Skellefteå. The method for this was based off of methodology gained from sources who had previously executed safety cases for trials of autonomous technology. A list of potential hazards relevant to the operation of autonomous vehicles was composed, together with variables with which to measure their severity. The relevance and appropriate scope of these hazards and variables was then verified by discussing it with sources with competence in this field. The route was then travelled in order to observe the prevalence of the aforementioned variables. The information was completed and verified through various reports gathered from the Swedish Transport Administration and the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. The result of the inquiry was that the autonomous technology on the market today is not sufficiently advanced to handle the specified application with an adequate level of safety. The route is also of limited use in establishing trials for testing of autonomous vehicles. While there are uses for autonomous transportation technology, great breakthroughs are needed before the technology reaches the level needed to handle such complex challenges as would be encountered on the proposed application. / Självkörande fordon är en teknologi som visar potential för betydande fördelar inom säkerhet, effektivitet och miljömässigt för dem som kan tygla den. Det framstår därför som naturligt att uppdragsgivaren till detta projekt skulle vara intresserad av denna teknik, då företaget är känt för att vara vid både miljö- och teknikfrågornas framkant. Därför lanserades detta utredningsarbete för att sammanställa tillräcklig kunskap för att kunna ta informerade beslut om en potentiell implementering av ett autonomt transportsystem från deras fabrik i Skellefteå till Skelleftehamn. Denna utredning började med att kartlägga hur autonoma fordonstekniken ser ut idag, samt de regulatoriska möjligheterna att driva autonoma system på allmän väg I Sverige. Informationen samlades från en mängd olika källor, inklusive akademisk litteratur, rapporter från officiella källor, journalistiska källor samt från intervjuer med personer som besitter kompentens och erfarenhet av ämnet. Emedan den regulatoriska situationen i Sverige för stunden inte medger något lagligt sätt att operera självkörande fordon på allmän väg så finns det möjlighet att få tillstånd att utföra försöksverksamhet med sådana fordon så länge vissa villkor uppfylls. En utredning genomfördes för att fastslå om sådan verksamhet skulle kunna vara relevant i företagets fall. I och med detta så utfördes en riskanalys på den föreslagna rutten i Skellefteå. Metoden för dess utförande baserades på metodologi som hämtades från källor som tidigare hade utfört säkerhetsbevisningar för försöksverksamhet på autonoma fordon. En lista av möjliga risker framtogs, tillsammans med mätpunkter vilka skulle kunna användas för att fastslå deras betydelse för autonom fordonteknologi. Dessa riskers relevans och lämpligheten av dess omfattning diskuterades därefter med källor med kompetens inom området. Sedan besöktes rutten för att observationer om mätpunkternas förekomst kunde utföras. Informationen kompletterades och verifierades därefter med information från ett antal rapporter från Trafikverket och Sveriges Meteorologiska och Hydrologiska Institut. Det man kommit fram till är att det idag inte finns något autonomt fordonssystem som är tillräckligt avancerat att klara rutten mellan fabriken och hamnen med god nog säkerhet. Rutten är dessutom av begränsat värde vad det gäller att testa sådana system. Även om det finns autonoma system i operation i dagsläget så ligger dock tekniken långt under den nivå som skulle behövas för att ta sig an de utmaningar som skulle uppstå I det föreslagna användningsområdet.

<p dir="ltr">In this thesis, a MATLAB model was used to simulate a 2-vehicle platoon where the lead truck is a conventional class 8 vehicle while the key parameters of the following truck was tested in various road conditions to minimize Inter vehicular Distance (IVD) and maximize fuel savings while ensuring safety</p>