Davis Derby KTP
To meet customer and industry demands for safer vehicle operations in logistics centres, mines and quarries, Davis Derby wanted to design a product to improve the safety of pedestrians working in the vicinity of vehicles used in logistics/warehousing and quarrying/mining.
Lead Academic: John Redgate
With over 400 hospitalisations a year, major fork lift truck accidents happen literally every day in the UK. Most are avoidable, and usually the victim is NOT the truck's operator.
”David Ellison, Chief Executive of the Fork Lift Truck Association
Specifically, the purpose of the new product is to identify pedestrians within 5 metres of a mobile plant and to provide a warning to the mobile plant control system so that drivers are alerted to the problem and automatic control systems can be triggered. This product will be known as the Pedestrian Recognition System (PRS).
Each of the two target industries presents is own challenges and criteria requiring separate versions of the PRS:
- In logistics environments, forklift trucks are small (1mx1m), fast and very agile - these will use the PRS-L product.
- Underground mining and quarrying settings may have larger plant (4mx6m) where the driver can not see all sides of the vehicle from the driving position and the equipment requires testing/certification to show it is intrinsically safe. This will use the PRS-QM system.
Impacts/benefits
The PRS will provide an input to the fork lift truck indicating the presence of pedestrians: the mobile plant supplier will be responsible for implementing a strategy to control the vehicle. The proposed system is therefore capable of being supplied to OEM plant suppliers as initial fit or as a retrofit to all existing plants that could be modified to process the warning signal. Davis already works closely with OEMs to integrate its current safety systems into mobile plant and would expect to do the same for this new product.
The result of this KTP will address and improve the startling accident statistics caused by the use of fork lift trucks. In September 2009, David Ellison, Chief Executive of the Fork Lift Truck Association, stated 'With over 400 hospitalisations a year, major fork lift truck accidents happen literally every day in the UK. Most are avoidable, and usually the victim is NOT the truck's operator.
These are major, life-shattering injuries like crushings and amputations. Last year, ten people were killed - and with fork lifts working on an estimated 100,000 UK sites, literally anyone could be at risk.' (Figures based on Health and Safety Executive statistics between 2001 and 2008.)
The personal and financial cost of these accidents is large and this product will contribute significantly to a reduction in incidents, benefiting both those working in these dangerous environments and their employers.
