(logo whooshes) (intense music)
- [Narrator] Weigh stations are an important part
of the trucking industry and vital
for the safe transportation of goods across the nation.
Usually installed in roads,
the idea of a weigh-in-motion system constructed
on a bridge is being researched.
This could potentially make stations safer to install,
less disruptive to traffic, and longer lasting.
Working with the Texas A & M Transportation Institute,
the Texas Department of Transportation
is looking to identify specifications
for a bridge weigh-in system including truck gross weight,
travel speed, and a type of vehicle.
- Trucks cause the most damage to pavements and bridges.
Therefore, acquiring truck data allows TxDOT
to proactively maintain these assets.
- We have an existing weigh-in-motion system.
Typically that's mounted in the pavement itself
and as trucks drive over that,
it registers how heavy that axle is,
the spacing between 'em, those things are exposed
to the abuse, the traffic pounding on 'em.
And they're costly to install,
they're costly to maintain, and it requires traffic control.
We always look for ways to eliminate that.
- [Stefan] This project developed a methodology
for transforming a bridge into a weigh-in-motion system.
This included recommendations for our sensors to be attached
to a bridge and for data processing algorithms.
The key findings of the project
are to characterize the truck traffic
using bridge weigh-in-motion system
including a number of axles, axle spacing, with speed,
the axle weight, the cross vehicle weight,
and the truck classification.
- This project was in coordination with Texas A & M and TTI.
They actually built a bridge to take their pest truck
and this bridge that they knew every aspect of
and start calibrating their instruments
and load it up with some concrete blocks and such,
weigh it with more traditional scales
and then start running the truck over this
so they could get everything developed
before they went out and actually put this
on real bridges with real traffic going over 'em.
- [Stefan] We essentially developed a method
for transforming a bridge into a scale to weigh trucks.
- It's certainly a very promising concept because of
the things I mentioned, the lower cost, the safety.
In the future, with some improvement
in some of the software aspect of this,
this could really even be like a law enforcement tool.
And then lastly, there is a little side benefit
'cause we can use it to tell us how the bridge is responding
to these truckloads that are going over it.
- [Narrator] For more information
and to find the publication for this project,
please visit the TxDOT Research Library
at the link shown below.