With a view of revolutionizing the transport of goods and reduce the overall logistic costs, the Automotive Industry Standards Committee has amended its AIS-113 Standard to include the safety requirements of Road-Trains and has hosted the draft on the Ministry of Road Transport & Highway (MoRTH) website.
The standards have been prepared after examining European benchmarks, keeping in mind Indian operating conditions. The Ministry hopes these standards would pave the way for a breakthrough intervention for fast and efficient movement of goods along the long-distance freight corridors.
A road-train is a motor vehicle wherein the traction is provided by the puller, which is connected to a serial combination of trailers or semi- trailers. As per the Ministry’s draft, these vehicles shall ply on select stretches to reduce congestion, save fuel and reduce noise & air-pollution.
The Automotive Industry Standards Committee has representatives from the relevant Ministries, Testing Agencies, Industry stakeholders, BIS etc. The amended standard AIS-113 (Code of Practice for Type Approval of Trailers / Semi-trailers of categories T2, T3 and T4 being towed by Motor Vehicles of categories N2 and N3) has been published for invitation of public comments, after which it shall be notified in due course.