Hi. I'm hoping there might be some motor enthusiasts out there who can help me with this term. My automotive dictionary claims that it's a "lateral guidance system" or "tracking system", but when I Google on those terms the contexts don't tally with what the author is talking about. And when I Google on "Spurführungssystem" almost all the entries seem to refer to agricultural vehicles - I can see why, because those will quite understandably travel along ruts in the earth, but again this isn't the right context.
I can't quote chunks of the German for confidentiality reasons, but it seems that what this system does is to help keep the vehicle on a specific course in its lane, e.g. on a motorway, by automatically making steering corrections if necessary. (I see that there's another related system which alerts the driver if he crosses the painted lines between lanes without indicating for a lane change.) The system I'm talking about, though, seems to be designed not only to keep the vehicle within its lane, but also to make sure that its course is shifted sideways a little so that it runs on a slightly different patch of roadway from other vehicles, in order to reduce the risk of the heavy goods vehicles' wheels tending to carve grooves into the tarmac and thus damaging the road surface. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
I must say, though, that my research so far suggests that "Spurführungssystem" may not be the most appropriate word anyway - Googling for it together with the manufacturer's name produces no hits whatsoever, which is suspicious. So if someone can suggest an alternative German noun which might be applicable to this type of system, too, that might give me something else to work from. I was wondering about calling it a "lane guidance system", but that's a phrase which seems to be largely associated with TomTom, where it seems that your satnav tells you which motorway lane you should be in for your journey, so I think that would be confusing.
Many thanks if anyone can disentangle all this and help!
I can't quote chunks of the German for confidentiality reasons, but it seems that what this system does is to help keep the vehicle on a specific course in its lane, e.g. on a motorway, by automatically making steering corrections if necessary. (I see that there's another related system which alerts the driver if he crosses the painted lines between lanes without indicating for a lane change.) The system I'm talking about, though, seems to be designed not only to keep the vehicle within its lane, but also to make sure that its course is shifted sideways a little so that it runs on a slightly different patch of roadway from other vehicles, in order to reduce the risk of the heavy goods vehicles' wheels tending to carve grooves into the tarmac and thus damaging the road surface. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
I must say, though, that my research so far suggests that "Spurführungssystem" may not be the most appropriate word anyway - Googling for it together with the manufacturer's name produces no hits whatsoever, which is suspicious. So if someone can suggest an alternative German noun which might be applicable to this type of system, too, that might give me something else to work from. I was wondering about calling it a "lane guidance system", but that's a phrase which seems to be largely associated with TomTom, where it seems that your satnav tells you which motorway lane you should be in for your journey, so I think that would be confusing.
Many thanks if anyone can disentangle all this and help!
