Skip to main content

City of Cambridge partners with Volpe on truck side guards

The City of Cambridge, Massachusetts is partnering with Volpe, the National Transportation Systems Center, to install truck side guards on city-owned trucks in order to enhance safety for pedestrians and bicyclists travelling in Cambridge. The city intends to install these side guards on heavy-duty vehicles in an effort to lead by example in Massachusetts and to encourage private entities to do the same.
May 28, 2015 Read time: 2 mins

The City of Cambridge, Massachusetts is partnering with Volpe, the National Transportation Systems Center, to install truck side guards on city-owned trucks in order to enhance safety for pedestrians and bicyclists travelling in Cambridge. The city intends to install these side guards on heavy-duty vehicles in an effort to lead by example in Massachusetts and to encourage private entities to do the same.

Side guards, which devices intended to sweep aside a pedestrian or cyclist in a side-impact crash, rather than being swept underneath the vehicle, are installed on large trucks. These are said to protect cyclists and pedestrians from falling underneath the vehicle, helped reduce bicyclist fatalities by 61 per cent and pedestrian fatalities by 20 per cent in side-impact crashes with trucks in the United Kingdom after side guards became required, starting in 1986.

“Cambridge has decided to quickly and definitively make changes to its fleet to establish a new standard for safety in our community and the private sector,” said City manager Richard C. Rossi. “I’m immensely proud of how the city and federal government have come together to work to protect our residents.”

Volpe and the city are jointly working on a vehicle redesign strategy that will establish recommendations for implementing truck side guards, blind spot mirrors, and other vehicle-based technologies on the city-owned truck fleet.

“I see Volpe’s first partnership with the City of Cambridge as an exciting opportunity to bring together the complementary strengths of our two government agencies,” said Dr. Alex Epstein, the Volpe team lead.  “Even more importantly, this partnership is likely to save lives if the side guards and other truck-based safety initiatives succeed as expected, advancing transportation innovation for the public good.”

UTC

Related Content

  • December 18, 2017
    Copenhagen to showcase ITS in action at ITSWC 2018
    As delegates head for the 2017 ITS World Congress in Montreal, we talk to Copenhagen mayor Morten Kabell about why his city is the ideal location for next year’s event. It may have been a long time coming but the ITS World Congress will be in Copenhagen in 2018 and there can be few more fitting places to host the event. By any number of metrics - interconnected transport, cycle commuting, safer streets, reduced pollution, sustainable energy and quality of life - the Danish capital has implemented what m
  • September 15, 2020
    Spin: work with cities to optimise micromobility
    E-scooter providers must form close partnerships with local governments to create a successful operating environment which the public will accept and embrace, says Spin
  • March 22, 2022
    Cities get road priorities right
    Cities including Paris, Milan and London have all announced serious expansions to their bicycling infrastructure over the last few years. The era of active travel is here, finds Alan Dron
  • April 5, 2024
    A coalition of the willing: iATL
    A living lab on the streets of Georgia, US, is helping to improve traffic safety by real-world deployments of technology. ITS International talks to the founder and some of the partners at the Infrastructure Automotive Technology Laboratory