Abstract
The braking system of heavy commercial vehicles was based in the last 80 years mainly on the compressed air as a material both for the transmission and for the control of the system. The benefits of using compressed air seemed to be more attractive than the demerits and on the other hand there has been for a long time no realistic alternative to change this status quo. In the beginning of the 80s the introduction of ABS in the concerned category of vehicles was the first sign, that the electronic control can compete with that realised via compressed air. After occupying at least partly some connected fields like the control of air suspension, the serial introduction of Electronic Braking Systems meant the real break (brake?) through.
So the question can be raised, what will be the future of the pneumatic brake equipment. Has there remained anything to develop, or we reached the end of the story and the focus will be definitely and finally only on the electronic development?
This paper tries breaking the forming tradition of the recent years i.e. to speak and write mainly about the results of the electronic development to analyse the last results of the pneumatic development, to show up, that even in the years of the successful marching of electronic systems there were, there are some important jobs for the pneumatic development and the results of it hand in hand with those of the electronic development contribute to the enhanced safety of our commercial vehicles, to the enhanced safety of our public roads.