ASPEN - Documenting Wheel End Pushrod Stroke vs. Mismatched Brake Chambers

On January 3, 2011 I appeared under Subpoena for a civil deposition involving a fatal truck crash in West Paris which I assisted on. During the course of my interrogatories, I was question extensively about the violations I had listed on the Motor Carrier Compliance Report. Pursuant to that, I was required to explain the brake measurements entered in the brake information section. I was also deposed as to the difference between the highlighted and non-highlighted brake measurements entered in that section. As I explained the individual brakes out-of-service as well as the 20% brake criterion rule, I noted there were eight individual brakes highlighted in out-of-service condition. When cross-referencing with the brake measurement entries on the Brake Data Analysis Form, it was clear that only six individual brakes should have been highlighted in out-of-service condition. Subsequent investigation revealed an issue with the ASPEN software that should be addressed to avoid future reporting errors of this nature. The crash vehicle was equipped with a combination of regular stroke and long stroke brake chambers. In ASPEN, the type of brake chamber must be entered for each axle. When a brake chamber type is selected from the drop down menu, it populates the fields for BOTH WHEELPOINTS on that particular axle. In this inspection, 2 axles had different type brake chambers on each wheel-point, however there is currently no way to populate each wheel-point field separately with a brake chamber type. When the chamber type is selected, it assigns the brake chamber type for the entire axle with no edit options. The reason this is a problem can be clearly seen in this example of Axle 6 on the crash vehicle. BOTH left & right side brake measurements were entered at 2 1/2 inches pushrod throw, or stroke. I selected regular stroke ?C? type chamber for that axle, at which time the software automatically highlighted BOTH brake measurements, indicating both brakes were out-of-service given the reported measurements. The right side wheel-point had a long-stroke chamber however, and given the measurement was only at the maximum adjustment limit and should not have been highlighted in an out-of-service condition.

In summary, there is currently no way in the current version of the ASPEN software to enter different brake chamber types for individual wheel-points. The Chamber Type may only be selected for an axle, which may or may not have the same brake chamber type on each wheel-point. This should be corrected to facilitate not only the accurate reporting of correct brake chamber types analyzed at each wheel-point, but also to generate the correct out-of-service reporting as well.

ASPEN to be corrected to facilitate not only the accurate reporting of correct brake chamber types analyzed at each wheel-point, but also to generate the correct out-of-service reporting as well.