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(intro music)

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- [Narrator] Research
has demonstrated that

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Portable Weigh-in-Motion,
or WIM technology,

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is a cost effective and accurate tool

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for TxDOT to measure
and collect the traffic

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and axle load specific data used

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for pavement designs, maintenance,

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or rehabilitation of the roadways,

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especially in heavy energy
development areas of the state.

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And now working with a Texas
A&M Transportation Institute

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project team, TxDOT has
implemented a portable version

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of these systems in
districts across the state.

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- [Tom] What was developed
here was a system

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for going out to any highway,

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and putting some sensors on the ground,

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and counting and weighing every
truck that drives over this,

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this system.

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It is new technology that was developed

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as part of the research program,

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and it was implemented
with a primarily focus

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on the energy sector.

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- [Robert] Especially within
the energy sector area.

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We can probably have a
good handle on the ADT,

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the vehicle counts, and
the truck percentage.

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But if we don't know the
weight of the vehicles,

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then that traffic
projection is gonna be off.

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So we designed with
the wrong traffic data.

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Then we can see premature
failures very quickly.

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- TxDOT's system has been
in place for many years,

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it's traffic counting system,

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but what what was happening
with the energy sector was

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they really needed project specific data.

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- So anytime there was a district need

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for project level data,

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there was a Portable
Weigh-in-Motion study that was

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conducted to give them exactly
the numbers they needed

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for pavement design purposes.

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In addition, also training
districts, but this research

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project for implementation
project gave the districts

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a little bit more training
on what the data means

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and how the data's
processed to get the most

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accurate numbers for
using the pavement design.

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- To improve the system,

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you know, one step further,
we're talking about new sensors

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which actually can classify trucks.

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So we can put a low cost sensor

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which can supplement the
data that TxDOT collects

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at the moment, which are the tube counts,

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and tell you the percentage of trucks.

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This is all a sort of an
incremental improvements here.

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So we're busy looking at new sensors

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to do truck classifications.

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- What this implementation
project did was take the findings

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from the original projects and
just expand given districts'

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traffic data that they
need for their projects.

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And also training them
in what the data means

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and what is the most accurate data

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that they need for their pavement designs.

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- [Narrator] For more information,

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and to find the publications
for this project,

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please visit the TxDOT research library

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at the link shown below.