Ausroad shifts focus to Allison-equipped road maintenance trucks

Report this content

Selected roads across Australia are being kept in peak condition by a fleet of Allison-equipped road maintenance trucks built by industry leader Ausroad Systems. 

BRISBANE, Australia – Leading Australian road maintenance vehicle manufacturer, Ausroad Systems, depends on Allison automatics to bring ease of use, versatility and robustness to its highly sought-after maintenance trucks. According to Ausroad managing director, Toni Dunlop, Allison transmissions have the design and technical requirements needed to maximize the performance of the trucks Ausroad modifies for its customers.

“Allison transmissions are perfect for the way we drive the machinery on the back of our trucks,” said Dunlop. “We drive three pumps off the Power Take Off (PTO), which puts a huge torque load on the transmission, but the Allison handles it with ease. Other transmissions don’t have the same PTO setup.”

Since its creation in the late 1980s, Ausroad has fitted road maintenance machinery to hundreds of trucks for local councils and mine site operators. In recent years, virtually all Ausroad trucks including the Isuzu FVZ range, Hino 500 Series, Fuso Fighter and Iveco Acco have been fitted with Allison’s 3500 six-speed automatic transmission as original equipment.

The road maintenance trucks are equipped with an aggregate spreader, spray bar and multi-purpose attachments for road patching and resealing. Transmissions are programmed to disengage the PTO when engine speeds exceed a pre-set limit to ensure the maintenance machinery worth more than $300,000 is not damaged.

“If the operator forgets to disengage the equipment, it is automatically shut down at 1500 RPM,” Toni explained. “Allison makes it simple to protect the investment, so there’s no concern about damaging the gear.”

Ausroad has put Allison automatics to the test over the years in climates ranging from sub-zero to more than 45°C, leaving no doubt about the durability of the transmissions.

“The operational patterns of our trucks are similar to those in refuse, with lots of stop and start use required. It’s quite a tough application, but we’ve never had a problem with Allison transmissions. They’re extremely robust and reliable, and we’ve never had to replace a gearbox due to wear and tear.”

As well as selling trucks in Australia, Ausroad also maintains its own for-hire fleet for both long and short term rentals. Being in the for-hire business made the decision to move to automatics obvious; the transmission takes pressure off drivers and ensures smooth operation.

“I don’t understand why you wouldn’t choose an automatic for this sort of vocation, particularly in a hire truck. It just seems crazy not to,” said Dunlop. “Not every driver is necessarily a good one, so the less to think about the better. An automatic means the driver doesn’t have to worry about a clutch, changing gears or engaging and disengaging the machinery to change direction.”

“We strongly recommend Allison-equipped trucks to all our customers,” he concluded. 

About Ausroad Systems

Established in 1989 by Toni Dunlop’s parents, Ausroad has been manufacturing road maintenance vehicles for nearly 25 years, positioning itself to be the leader in manufacturing of specialty road maintenance trucks. Ausroad supplies nearly half of local governments in Australia’s eastern states and a number of mining sites in Western Australia. For more information, visit ausroad.com.au.

About Allison Transmission

Allison Transmission (NYSE: ALSN) is the world’s largest manufacturer of fully automatic transmissions for medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles and hybrid-propulsion systems for city buses. Allison transmissions are used in a variety of applications including refuse, construction, fire, distribution, bus, motorhomes, defense and energy. Founded in 1915, the company is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA and employs approximately 2,800 people worldwide. With a market presence in more than 80 countries, Allison has regional headquarters in the Netherlands, China and Brazil with manufacturing facilities in the U.S., Hungary and India.  Allison also has approximately 1,400 independent distributor and dealer locations worldwide. For more information, visit allisontransmission.com.

Press Contacts                                 

Claire Dumbreck                                         Holly Zhang

Propel Technology                                      Allison Transmission Asia Pacific 

claire@propel-technology.com                 holly.zhang@allisontransmission.com

+44 (0) 1295 724573                                +86 (10) 6468-6800 ext. 8818

Bloxham Mill                                                 Room 319, Block C, Guomen Building

Bloxham                                                        #1 Zuo Jia Zhuang, Chaoyang District

United Kingdom                                           Beijing 100028, China

This press release may contain forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by such terminology as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expect,” “plans,” “project,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “intend,” “forecast,” “could,” “potential,” “continue,” the negative of these terms or other similar terms or phrases. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve known and unknown risks. Factors which may cause the actual results to differ materially from those anticipated at the time the forward-looking statements are made include, but are not limited to: risks related to our potential indebtedness; our participation in highly competitive markets; general economic and industry conditions; our ability to prepare for, respond to and successfully achieve our objectives relating to technological and market developments and changing customer needs, the failure of markets outside North America to increase adoption of fully automatic transmissions, the discovery of defects in our products resulting in delays in new model launches, recall campaigns and/or increased warranty costs and reduction in future sales or damage to our brand and reputation; the concentration of our net sales in our top five customers and the loss of any one of these; risks associated with our international operations; brand and reputational risks; our intention to pay dividends; and labor strikes, work stoppages or similar labor disputes which could significantly disrupt our operations or those of our principal customers. Although we believe the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that the expectations will be attained or that any deviation will not be material. All the information is as of the date of this press release, and we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in expectations

.

Tags:

Media

Media

Documents & Links