The main goal of vehicle active suspension system is to upgrade the ride quality and stability of heavy duty vehicle (HDV) regardless of road surface. The mathematical modelling of HDV with two degrees of freedom is developed and simulated in MATLAB/Simulink environment. The simple and effective control techniques such as proportional integral and derivative (PID) controller, sliding mode controller (SMC) and fractional order sliding mode controller (FOSMC) are designed to detach the vibration from the passenger under step, sinusoidal and random road profile. Literature reveals that the FOSMC can eliminate steady state error and chattering effect unlike SMC and PID. The dynamic analysis of designed controllers is examined in terms of time domain, frequency domain and ride comfort analysis as per ISO 2631. The stability of SMC and FOSMC is confirmed by Lyapunouv stability for three different road profiles. The FOSMC shows satisfactory simulation results than SMC, PID and passive suspension system in reducing suspension deflection and body acceleration of HDV to upgrade the ride quality. Further, the efficacy of proposed FOSMC is proved by comparing the simulation results against existing results of PID controller.