Medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks and buses play a vital role in moving freight and passengers, serving as the backbone of America's economy. These vehicles are also essential for construction, building and servicing of our water and electricity infrastructure, collecting refuse, and maintaining roadways and highways. Improving vehicle efficiency and safety in freight transportation, while informing national strategies toward minimizing environmental impacts and decarbonizing the transportation sector, is vital to the country as the economy grows.

Leading the way, the 21^st Century Truck Partnership^SM is addressing these important national challenges related to medium-duty and heavy-duty truck efficiency, safety, and emissions by fostering research collaboration and technical innovation among government and industry partners. The 21^st Century Truck Partnership's overall vision is for our nation's trucks and buses to safely and cost-effectively move larger volumes of freight and greater numbers of passengers while emitting little or no pollution to decarbonize the transportation sector.

The 21^st Century Truck Partnership is addressing the technical needs of the medium- and heavy-duty truck industry, as well as major policy goals for government agencies, through three main activities:

• Accelerating technology development through collaborative, pre-regulatory, and pre-competitive R&D in component and system-level projects.
• Focusing R&D efforts on topics of broad interest by providing a discussion forum and organizing consensus building tools such as roadmaps and position papers that help partnership members agree on R&D topics and goals. The partnership provides opportunities for collaborative discussion on research needs and reference materials to maximize productivity.
• Conducting information exchange and dissemination through regular conference calls, meetings, and information dissemination tools. These resources help partners access current information about industry and government activities and opportunities.

Technical Sector Focus Areas

The partnership focuses on the following technical areas and has developed four all-new roadmap documents to provide the technical foundation for research priorities within these technical areas:

• Internal Combustion Engine Powertrains (engine, fuel, emissions equipment, transmissions, drive axles, hybrid drive systems)
• Electrification Technologies (traction motors, power electronics, energy storage, charging and infrastructure)
• Freight Operational Efficiency (vehicle duty cycle, automation and connectivity, driver impacts)
• Safety (advance driver assistance systems or ADAS, automated driving systems, safety communications)

For more information on the 21^st Century Truck Partnership please contact 21ctp@ee.doe.gov.