M3S2 – Measuring the on-board weighting of heavy vehicles

Author

László Ketskeméty

Mini Project ID

BMEMPLOAD3

Description

The case: Illegal overweighting of heavy goods vehicles is a major problem throughout Europe. Heavy goods vehicles, buses and coaches transporting goods in Europe must comply with certain rules on weights and dimensions for road safety reasons, and to avoid damage to roads, bridges and tunnels. Besides monitoring the vehicles using WIM (Weighting In-motion) or the OBW (On Board Weighting) systems, these data would feed into a central European database to monitor the total European road network, forecast deterioration, plan maintenance / renovation, and the ideal allocating of central resources.

The below solution to the problem must be explained in writing:

The existing WIM network should be extended in such a way the extended network can form a representative sample of an appropriate size in the road section population.
The set of road sections need to be separated into homogeneous parts by clustering based on the road section database.
A representative sample then can be formed by stratified sampling, while the existing stations shall be considered as part of the sample. New measuring point installations must be planned for the “missing” road sections.

Sector

VET

Data

N/A

Model

You would like to argue in favour of the solution presented, however you have to present the arguments that you based decision on, otherwise they seem unfounded. When presenting the solution, the following arguments have to be made:

There are several possible solutions to the weighting and monitoring problem described in the description. According to one, all existing stations should all be included in the planned sample. This solution can only be implemented if there are no high-density areas in the network. In such cases, only a sample with a large number of items could ensure representativeness. If there are high-density areas, the measuring point elements to be included in the sample must be selected at random from that part. Unselected points can be used to check the estimate.
There are several techniques for clustering. Either dynamic or hierarchical techniques can be good. It is essential to choose a good metric function. In addition to the speed of execution, which algorithm reproduces an expert separation (the training set) with the highest accuracy may be decisive in the selection.
By stratified sampling of clusters, it is expedient to select the sampling points so that the ratios in the sample correspond to the ratios between the clusters. The appropriate number of elements from the clusters should be formed by simple random selection.

Calculation

N/A

Solution

Dear Mr. President! Dear Commission!

The weight load of heavy vehicles has serious consequences, in terms of the deterioration of the road network, in increasing road safety risks, as well as serious environmental consequences. The solution I would like to present is an online information system of the EU’s road network, which could provide data on the loads of heavy goods vehicles in circulation. It would not only make possible to penalize hauliers who break the weight limits, thus curbing this harmful practice, but this system would provide essential information for the planning of renovations in a way that they are the most beneficial in terms of necessity.

To acquire the necessary data regarding the heady goods vehicles on the road is weighing in motion. There are two solutions for that. WIM measuring points are built into the infrastructure at the beginning of road sections, which can measure the weight of the vehicles passing through them with only a slight reduction in speed. The identification of the vehicle can be done by installing a camera system to identify the license plates. The other option is done using OBW instruments mounted on the axle of a motor vehicle trailer. The measuring points can then be inexpensive sensors set up along the road, which are able to capture the data transmitted by the passing vehicle. This is the cheaper solution in terms of infrastructure development, and the burden of the development is borne by the owner of the vehicle.

The Preparatory Committee noted that from the point of view of monitoring the road network, it would be expedient to plan the construction of the WIM network in such a way that the newly built measuring points together with the existing measuring points form a subset representative of the entire road network. According to our calculations, one tenth of the total deployment cost could be used to build such a cleverly designed metering network. Parallel to this development, the OBW technology should also be developed. The great advantage of this technology is that the measuring points can be moved to another location quickly and randomly, so that weight control would be possible continuously, similar to the radar speed control of vehicles.

We calculate that savings of up to 40% in maintenance costs can be achieved if road renovations are required less frequently by slowing down the degradation process. The metering network will also reduce the number of illegally overloaded heavy vehicles on the roads, saving an additional 5-10%. The maintainability of the road network becomes more predictable, which is also beneficial from the point of view of traffic management. According to our calculations, the restriction of heavy vehicles will result in a 2-8% reduction in the number of road accidents. Filtering out overweight vehicles on the roads will also have a good effect on increasing average traffic speeds.

The timing of the implementation of the metering network project is achievable by the end of a five-year cycle. Only one-tenth of the expected entry costs are issued for the full construction costs, which are expected to be recouped in 5-10 years due to declining road maintenance costs.

Flowcharts of the implementation plans can be found in the annex. When making a decision, several (sometimes contradictory) aspects had to be taken into account. Proposals based on preferences for the financing aspect, for the environmental aspect, for the time implementation aspect differed. In addition, the differing positions of each country and strong lobbying interests had to be taken into account as well, so a hybrid solution emerged.

The preparatory committee voted in favour of this mixed solution: WIM systems need to be built as planned, the OBW calibration process needs to be regulated, and a central Big Data management centre needs to be set up to collect network data.

Hereby we present you the proposal for the final decision making.

Sincerely,
[signature]

Presentation

Based on the presentation, decision makers choose the solution that seems to be optimal. Since they want to make the optimal decision from several point of views, they choose a mixed, hybrid solution of alternative proposals. They entrust the preparatory committee with elaborating a detailed implementation plan for the solution with a specific deadline. At the very end, the decision made will be presented to the press at an international press conference.