ATLANTA, Ga. — Five innovative trucking technologies have been named finalists for the 2017 Jim Winsor Memorial Technical Achievement Award presented by the North American Truck Writers Awards Committee.

The committee, comprised of truck writers from most major North American trucking trade publications, will announce the winner March 7 during an industry awards luncheon at the Technology & Maintenance Council’s Annual Meeting & Transportation Technology Exhibition in Atlanta, Ga.

Each year since 1991, the group’s award committee ranks components and systems nominated by its members and chooses five award finalists. To be eligible, a product or service from the named year must show technical innovation, have a wide applicability and availability in trucking and offer significant operating benefits.

The first Technical Achievement Award was given in 1991 under the auspices of the Truck Writers of North America (TWNA). That organization disbanded last summer after several years of inactivity, except for the award committee.

As of last year, the annual award was named in honor of Jim Winsor, a 50-year truck journalist and TWNA member who was active in TMC and a predecessor organization. Long known, respected and loved in the trucking industry, Winsor passed away in 2015.

Award committee chairman Jim Park, of Heavy Duty Trucking and Today’s Trucking, listed the 2017 TWNA Technical Achievement Award’s five finalists as:

• Eaton Cummins Automated Transmission Technologies’ Endurant automated transmission
• The Hyliion 6x4HE System electric drive axle
• The Truck-lite Road Ready trailer monitoring and communication system
• Volvo’s LED headlamps, which feature a reverse-flow fan that helps defrost the lens in winter conditions
• XStream Truck Wings auto-deploy trailer gap system

“2017 was a banner year for innovation and imagination in new product development,” Park says. “We began deliberations with the longest list in the history of the award but managed to get it down to just five through many hundreds of emails and phone calls. This is an exciting time to be writing about trucking and trucking technology.”

Other members of the award committee are Paul Abelson, of Land Line; John Baxter, freelance technical writer; Tom Berg, Heavy Duty Trucking and Construction Equipment; Jason Cannon, CCJ; Seth Clevenger, Transport Topics; James Menzies, Truck News; Jason Morgan, Fleet Equipment; Suzanne Stempinski, Land Line; Steve Sturgess, freelance; Jack Roberts, Heavy Duty Trucking; and John G. Smith, Today’s Trucking.

The Truck Writers of North America’s Technical Achievement Award was first presented in 1991 to Grote Industries for its red LED marker lamp and has since been awarded to companies large and small for their products and services. Winner of the 2016 award was the Cummins X15 Efficiency Series engine.