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A 'Game Changing Technology' For Truck Drivers

An innovative and sophisticated seating system is helping to reduce occupational injuries and road accidents.


Who would have thought the technology behind sound-cancellation headphones would lead to fewer occupational injuries and road accidents by long-haul truck drivers?

The Bose Ride Team and Chartis Science Team, that's who.

"It's an unique relationship," said Matthew Power, chief innovation and strategic relationship officer at Chartis-AIG in Boston, noting that his company has formed an alliance with Bose Corp. to offer "preferred pricing" for Bose Ride system seats to clients.

The system "replaces the air-ride seats currently in use with technology that senses, analyzes and counteracts forces from the road," according to a report by Jim Parison, principal engineer at Bose R&D, who was instrumental in developing the technology.

With conventional air-ride seats, drivers experience whole-body vibration and shaking, which not only reduces comfort, but increases stress on the spine and body, and impacts visual perception, according to his report. Power said the difference to drivers in using the Bose suspension base and integrated, custom-designed seat top "is so dramatic, it's almost as if you are floating.

All of the vibration is essentially absorbed like a high-end automobile."

While the seats are expensive, he said, that cost is not even close to the cost of lost days, workers' comp or potential liability for accidents that can stem from using more traditional seats.

That was certainly the case for a company driver in Canada who was able to drive only once a week because of back pain. After he was given a Bose Ride seat, he was "back to running four or five days a week now," according to an article in "Truck News."

That company's director of safety told the magazine that "over a three-year period, I would have accumulated a $369,000 lost time injury claim ... . When I look at a $6,000 seat versus a $369,000 lost time injury claim, it's cheap."

Although there are many similar anecdotes from drivers, Power said Chartis is working to offer clients qualitative proof "of this game-changing technology."

"We are building a telemetry model to identify and ultimately demonstrate improvement in over-the-road safety when these truck seats are in place, i.e., that reduce this vibration and the constant shaking the driver is exposed to" because of the road surface.

Over time, the constant vibration and shaking "just wears on the spinal column and musculoskeletal system. We see a tremendous amount of back injuries that come out of [the trucking] sector," he said.

And fatigue -- which is also a result of the vibration -- is "a leading component of road accidents, he said, noting that the Bose Ride seats also help eliminate fatigue. "Once you have demonstrated that you have proof positive [of the results], the cost-benefit analysis then becomes very, very tangible," Power said. "It's our goal to demonstrate that not only to our customers but to the industry as a whole."

According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2009, heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers had a median of 15 days away from work due to injury or illness, as well as having one of the highest incidents -- compared to all occupations -- of musculoskeletal disorders, with nearly half of MSD injuries in the back, followed by shoulder, leg, abdomen, arm, multiple body parts and wrist.

A survey by Bose of 77 professional drivers who used the Bose Ride system on their normal runs found that 84 percent of them reported improved comfort, 75 percent had less soreness and stiffness, and 66 percent had decreased driving fatigue.

Ralph Tricomi, business development manager at Framingham, Mass.-based Bose, notes that, while his company is mostly known for its audio products, controlling motion and sound actually require a lot of the same engineering. Both rely on precisely controlling vibration, or motion, at high speeds.

"Bose has researched applying our technologies to suspension systems for over 30 years, with the Bose Ride system being our first commercial offering," he said. The Bose Ride seating system, which is designed to remove the effects of whole-body vibration, has been on the market for about two years, and Chartis initially approached the company about a year ago, he said.

"We are in the process of strengthening and developing our relationship ... ," Tricomi said. "We feel it's a very unique opportunity for both of us to take a hard look at our product and what we can do along the risk management perspective."

Power said Chartis is "trying to champion this technology and raise the awareness because the more people who are aware of it, the higher the adoption rate and the greater the impact in terms of over-the-road accidents and occupational injury will be."

"The higher the adoption rate, the more people will really recognize what Bose has done from an innovation standpoint, and the better, the more pronounced the improvement will be for the industry," he said.

--By Anne Freedman