KEEPING OVERWEIGHT TRUCKS FROM GETTING A-WEIGH

Increasing truck traffic creates the need to improve weight enforcement methods. One solution is to use technology that gives Department of Public Safety troopers a sharper eye to spot violators. The Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) pilot-tested a truck weight enforcement system using weigh-in-motion (WIM) in combination with other intelligent transportation system (ITS) technologies to improve truck weight enforcement. WIM, commonly used at ports of entry in a static or fixed mode, is one component of an ITS system designed by TTI to both identify overweight trucks and alert enforcement personnel who do not have to be at the WIM site. Immediately after a truck passes over the WIM sensors in the roadway, the WIM system processes the information to determine whether the vehicle exceeds weight limits. It if does, the TTI system takes a picture of the vehicle and sends it, along with weight information, to an enforcement vehicle. WIM output alerts troopers to overweight vehicles that are then weighed on the static roadside scales. This means fewer trucks passing over the scales and clogging traffic lanes with long inspection lines.