International Truck unveils DriverFirst initiative

International Truck, Lisle, Illinois, has announced it has launched its company-wide DriverFirst initiative. According to the company, this product design philosophy emphasizes the driver’s perspective to allow customers to attract and retain qualified drivers.  

“Today, for our customers, uptime means more than having trucks that are built to stay on the road,” says Denny Mooney, senior vice president, Global Product Development. “Given the industry’s chronic driver shortage, it’s also about having enough drivers to operate those trucks. And for us, that means building trucks that will help our customers attract and retain drivers, by reflecting the driver’s point of view in the way they are designed and the technologies and features they offer. Simply put, we want to build trucks that drivers want to drive.”

The company says the DriverFirst initiative was inspired by customers’ and drivers’ input for International’s upcoming renewed product line, gathered from driver clinics, fleet feedback and studies of driver trends. Many customers told the company that driver shortage has made it difficult to keep all trucks in operation. These reports are consistent with quantitative reports from American Trucking Associations and other industry sources that the industry is currently 35,000 to 40,000 drivers short of meeting its needs, the company says. 

“The key takeaway from our research is that drivers want trucks that are designed to do the job,” Mooney says. “Drivers aren’t looking for something automotive or futuristic for its own sake. They just want something comfortable and functional, with a design that helps them do their job better and more easily.”
Mooney identified four specific areas where International is pursuing ongoing innovations and driver-centric features, based on its research into driver needs:

• Comfort: ergonomics, interior lighting and color, as well as low noise, vibration and harshness (NVH);  
• Safety: visibility, state-of-the-art headlights, radar, digital cameras and other technologies; 
• Productivity: automated manual transmissions, improved vehicle serviceability and ease of maintenance; and
• Efficiency: improving fuel economy, designing more intuitive displays.

Though the DriverFirst philosophy was only recently formalized, it reflects a long-standing customer focus that has already yielded a number of International innovations in the marketplace, Mooney says. Examples listed include the company’s being first to market with the Bendix Wingman Fusion safety system, which is designed to prioritize driver’s safertly, and International’s Over-the-Air Programming, to reduce downtime spent in driver maintenance.

“The DriverFirst philosophy has already helped us deliver multiple innovations, and it plays an even more prominent role in the new products that we will be bringing to the market starting this fall,” Mooney says. “We are committed to helping our customers improve the total driver experience, so they can encourage their drivers to stick around for the long haul.”