The third Global Commercial Vehicle Industry Meeting, a gathering of the chief executives of leading US, EU and Japanese manufacturers of heavy-duty vehicles and engines, took place on November 1 in Chicago, chaired by International Truck and Engine Corporation CEO Daniel Ustian, reports the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association.

This year¡¯s session focused on two themes: emissions reduction and safety. Participants agreed that improvements in both fields over the last 20 years are not always recognized and need to be highlighted clearly to governments and public authorities. Some of the discussions focused on the international harmonisation of regulations.

The meeting agreed on the need for harmonised emissions standards and test methods for what is a global sector, and urged the adoption of Global Technical Regulations (gtrs) on (a) emissions testing, (b) on-board diagnostics (OBD), and (c) off-cycle emissions.

Other issues discussed included the customer acceptance of selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems and concerns about urea-distribution infrastructure and tamper resistance, and the need for global fuel regulations to overcome wide variations in fuel specifications.

This, the meeting concluded, should be given a priority within the UN, in parallel with globally harmonised vehicle regulations, and participants supported the introduction of an automotive diesel fuel standard into the ISO TC28 work programme, using the Worldwide Fuel Charter as a basis for the work.

Concerning vehicle safety, manufacturers at the meeting agreed that additional progress in the areas of crash protection and crash avoidance can be achieved, and further agreed to pursue this work in a globally harmonised context.

The next, 4th Global Commercial Vehicle Industry Meeting will take place in Europe.