Automated WIM Enforcement Back-office Implementation
Client
The Latvian State Roads performs the management of the state road network, administration of the State Road Fund and organization of public procurement in order to provide the public with profitable, durable, safe and environmentally friendly state road network.
The challenge
It’s a common understanding that overweight vehicles pose risks to road infrastructure and safety.
Total weight, axle loads and spacing of the vehicle is crucial for road structures such as bridges and others, while the axle and axle group loads are crucial for pavements.
Almost a third of the full traffic flow on the main Latvian roads come from the Heavy Goods Vehicles and the problem with overweight vehicles on the national roads became
evident.
Periodically organized manual traffic controls confirmed that the laws were not abided by many carriers, but the scope of the issue was hard to estimate precisely due to a lack of automated and efficient approach towards monitoring the full traffic flow for overweight vehicles.
The solution
Fits Traffic implement a back-office solution that would integrate Kistler’s WIM sensors and Siemens Sicore II ANPR cameras to automatically capture photographic evidence of all the overweight vehicles (recording gross vehicle weight and axle loads).
The solution also provided information on the full traffic, which enabled the client to evaluate the overweight vehicle data in the context of the complete traffic flow.
Fits.safety system is used to facilitate the pre-selection process and to gather necessary evidence data. It is then prepared for delivery to the responsible road-safety authority
for further violation processing purposes.
The outcome
Latvia could start with a modern back-office system in place that would easily support a further expansion of the WIM locations across the main highways as well as providing direct enforcement capabilities as soon as the changes in the law would permit such an enforcement method.
The current installation at one of Latvia’s most important highways (A7) provides necessary data and valuable insight into the proportions of overweight vehicles. Recent measurements have indicated that on average 44% of all vehicles are above 3.5t and 5.6% of vehicles are above 44t.
Data shows that pre-selection of the vehicles has not only made the work of law enforcement officers more efficient but also the amount of heavily overweight vehicles is steadily decreasing.
“Overloaded trucks damage the carriageway, and over time, even on a newly built road, disruption can rapidly occur, becoming an overwhelmed threat to road safety and a costly issue that needs to be repaired as quickly as possible. Therefore, the control of such cars is utterly important.”
The Latvian State Roads
