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Due to their inherent advantages, goods transports on the road are indispensable. The permanently increasing competitive and legal requirements demand the exploitation of all technological and engineering possibilities. The high standard of commercial vehicle technology now attained means that new ways must be found of utilizing the remaining scope for further progress, e.g. by increased application of intelligent vehicle systems. This contribution describes such electronic systems. These systems will assist and relieve stress from the driver. Moreover, the possibilities of electronic intelligence will lead to an outstanding increase of active safety and transport efficiency of future vehicle generations [1].

The active safety of tractor / trailer-combinations plays an important role in regard to traffic safety in general. For improving the active safety of tractor / trailer-combinations, it is necessary to investigate the interactions between the towing vehicle and the trailer during braking maneuvers. This paper describes the ECE-regulations for the braking force distributions of tractor/full trailer- and tractor / semitrailer-combinations. The influence of different layouts of the braking systems within these regulations on the coupling forces between tractor and trailer and the driving performance of the units during braking is investigated. The dynamical behaviour of a tractor/full-trailer-combination and a tractor / semitrailer-combination are both discussed with the aid of simulations of the ISO-standard testing procedures “Braking in a turn” and “Braking straight ahead”.