Here’s why WiM is value for money

Weigh in Motion systems are not new. What is new is their ability to collect more data and – importantly – more accurate data about axle loading and vehicle weight. Despite the obvious benefits, including safer highways and possibility of automated legal weight enforcement, obstacles remain for faster uptake. David Arminas reports on the manufacturers’ perspective…

Overloaded vehicles can cause significant road and travel disruption, including closed carriageways and fatal crashes. Overloading increases vehicle stopping distances and risks tyre blow-outs, creating dangerous conditions for all road users. Unfortunately, overloading is still all too often viewed as a minor infraction, despite it costing millions in road damages and thousands of lives lost on the world’s highways annually.

Vastly improving Weigh in Motion technology can help combat overloaded vehicles and improve the safety of the world’s highways. They can help road and bridge designers and also aid highway agencies and owners with enforcement of road weight restrictions.

The market is increasing for these systems. But while the technology is there and getting better in leaps and bounds, there remain issues and obstacles concerning the uptake of WiM, according some leading manufacturers.

Not least among these is a lack of understanding by clients about what exactly WiM can do for them or what is required from client and supplier for successful use of the systems, says Florian Weiss, chief executive of Traffic Data Systems in Hamburg. “Most tenders tend to rely on parameters that were in the distant past, despite WiM technology having greatly moved on, especially in the area of dynamic WiM and law enforcement,” he says.

“The issue is really that the people writing the tenders are not familiar with the technology and they might use a consultant to write it.” This is the situation in Germany at least, where, he says, the market is at a virtual standstill. “It is one thing to supply the systems, it is another to maintain them and often this is not that well-thought-out in tender,” says Weiss. “Checking the sensors and how well a WiM unit is set into a road surface may require closure of a motorway or at least one motorway lane. This can be complicated and expensive for the client, road agency and motorway concessionaire.”

Also, another hindrance for a greater uptake of WiM is that it isn’t just a matter of slapping down a WiM system anywhere along an existing highway. It has to be carefully considered, explains Weiss. “At the moment, for a low-speed WiM system, you must have a parking area where the truck can pull off and roll over a WiM set-up at low speed. If they are suspected of being overloaded, then the driver must pull over and go through all kinds of inspections of the vehicle and a static weighing. This takes at least half an hour and much personnel to conduct the work.”

Global market

Nonetheless, there is agreement that the global market is growing, although perhaps not as fast some would wish. “[We are] seeing significant growth for WiM systems globally,” says Oliver Bain, managing director of Q-Free UK and vice president of Q-Free Infomobility. “Road authorities increasingly recognise the social and financial benefits, anything from statistical reporting to direct [law] enforcement.”

He says that fully-automated enforcement systems are being adopted in more countries. “New operating models, such as Data as a Service and the decreasing cost of obtaining WiM data and acting on it, are making WiM systems more accessible to both local and central government departments.” Road safety and cost reduction in road maintenance through fewer overloaded vehicles are constantly on the minds of road agencies, notes Wang Ping, WiM chief technical officer of Vanjee Technology, based in Beijing. “They are very sensitive to both issues, but in our experience, road safety is by far the more important factor.”

“Most tenders tend to rely on parameters that were in the distant past, despite WiM technology having greatly moved on” Florian Weiss, Traffic Data Systems

Infrastructure preservation and road safety are primary reasons for implementing high-accuracy WiM, explains Leonardo Guerson, WiM product manager and application engineer with Intercomp, headquartered in the US state of Minnesota. “These reasons are central to road enforcement efforts worldwide and WiM applications are prioritised in such contexts,” he says.

Another significant application that has gained momentum in recent years is the use of WiM data for pavement design and management. “Advanced pavement design methods, such as the US MEPDG [Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide] integrate site-specific load data into their algorithms,” says Guerson. “High-quality WiM data is essential for accurate calculations and ensuring a road service life that meets design expectations.”

Unlike other data collection methodologies, such as video or classifiers, WiM systems offer a unique and invaluable resource, that of axle-loading data. This is indispensable for understanding the impact of vehicles on road wear, freight movement, regulatory studies and bridge design - and for more effectively planning maintenance and other infrastructure investment.

“The field has witnessed notable advancements in sensor, hardware and software capabilities,” says Roy Czinku, vice president of ITS solutions and maintenance services at Quarterhill, headquartered in the city of Saskatoon in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. “Thanks to these improvements, WiM systems provide more accurate, reliable and repeatable measurements than ever before. We've also have seen improvements in how WiM handles vehicle dynamics and temperature variations. Improvements to connectivity have significantly expanded the scope of what WiM systems can achieve, particularly in terms of data accessibility and sharing.”

Transformative change

The past two decades, in particular, have seen a transformative change in how WiM data is used, says Czinku, making it far more accessible to relevant stakeholders who stand to benefit the most. “There's a pronounced trend toward leveraging WiM technology for direct enforcement of vehicle weights to make commercial vehicle enforcement even more efficient.” This is because of “a growing momentum to implement legislation that permits direct enforcement based on WiM data”.

Václav Blahnik, product manager of WiM technology at Cross, based in the Czech Republic, believes the primary reason for WiM adoption is the cost savings on road repairs. “These costs can be quantified and then presented to state authorities and the public, thus justifying the investment in the acquisition of WiM systems,” he says. “Increased safety is also a decisive factor but its demonstration is problematic because it is not easily quantified and is rather subjective in nature, involving many difficult-to-grasp variables.”

Given the vast improvement in data accuracy that allows not least more law enforcement capability, what can be done drive greater adoption of WiM, especially dynamic WiM? It might take some of the competitors to collaborate on educational initiatives. However, this would be a tough ask, says Traffic Data Systems’ Weiss. Competition among suppliers in Germany, for example, is high with only a few tenders for WiM in recent years.

Suppliers and manufacturers of WiM systems have believed, says Weiss, that dynamic low-speed WiM as a legal weight direct enforcement tool would drive the market. But regulations covering their use are slow in coming. “You can use such systems in Germany, but not for legal enforcement, which is the key. To allow for this, rules, regulations and laws have to be changed. This is something that can take 10 to 15 years. You can use dynamic weighing for collecting statistics and preselection of vehicles to be statically weighed. But dynamic weighing for legal enforcement is where the systems can make money. We do not have the legislation to operate them.” Weiss believes that Germany is not unique among European countries.

“Managing these contracts based on performance typically results in improved uptime and higher data quality” Leonardo Guerson, Intercomp

Blahnik, from Cross in the Czech Republic, believes that for collaboration or cooperation there must be a legislative framework, especially for direct enforcement, where departments of transport set the rules. “In connection with it, the metrological authority must define clear metrological requirements and conditions under which such a WiM system can be operated,” he says. “All this should be in accordance with the needs of local authorities or the private sector, who should benefit from the operation of the WiM station, as well as with the capabilities of WiM manufacturers, who must be able to deliver WiM within the required parameters.”

Some form of collaboration between the private sector, departments of transport and local government authorities in WiM applications has always been important and is likely to remain so, says Guerson from Intercomp. “This is because of a trend toward performance-based WiM contracts. WiM data collection is delivered as a service and all aspects of implementation are managed by a single company or a consortium of companies.”

Guerson believes that this model has proven effective globally, as the success of WiM applications depends on various factors, including site selection, installation, calibration, operation and maintenance. “Consolidating responsibility within one party and managing these contracts based on performance typically results in improved uptime and higher data quality.”

Quarterhill’s Czinku agrees: “Historically, government entities such as highway and motor vehicle enforcement agencies have been instrumental in running and authorising traffic data and weight compliance programmes. However, as we witness more roadways operating with private investment, toll authorities also have an interest in critical enforcement and safety data.”

Evolutionary shift

He says there has been “an evolutionary shift in the funding model” for WiM systems. “For example, an ‘as-a-service’ model offers various levels of engagement ranging from purchasing full systems and managing them independently to adopting a hybrid approach or fully subscribing to a managed service. As a consequence of this, there's a clear need to consider a broader network of stakeholders in the design of WiM systems.”

The sphere of influence is expanding beyond traditional boundaries. Highway and enforcement agencies are increasingly blending their operations through combined, multi-use WiM systems. Investment by private industry is complementing this collaboration, with road operators providing valuable data to state agencies and enforcement authorities and WiM systems being used for pavement warranty auditing.

Advancements in technology, including tyre anomaly detection and Vehicle to Everything (V2X) communications, are enriching this data ecosystem. This  benefits planners, road operators, drivers and safety and enforcement agencies. With the capacity for real-time data growing and technologies evolving to create interoperable networks, collaboration across jurisdictions and with a multiplicity of stakeholders is not just advantageous, but becoming necessary for overall system efficiency gains.

Because WiM systems are getting more sophisticated and their data more accurate, it makes sense for the supplier and manufacturer to get much more involved in their use and performance. VanJee’s Wang Ping already sees a move away from the original contract type where departments of transport and local authorities fund construction and operation of a WiM system. The trend, he says, is for the private sector to build the WiM system and then help the departments and highway authorities to operate them.

“This will reduce the financial pressure on DoTs and local authorities,” says Wang. “And the purchaser will have more power and initiative to evaluate the services of the private sector over a longer period of time, rather than just a single acceptance, as is the case when purchasing a WiM product. There are so many benefits to DoTs and local authorities that they are more likely to favour such projects.”

“These costs can be quantified and then presented to state authorities and the public, thus justifying the investment in the acquisition of WiM systems” Václav Blahnik, Cross

While the financial pressure on DoTs maybe reduced, it also means that private sector companies - unless they are very good at similar services in other areas - will now be under a lot of performance pressure in terms of product and service quality, as well as funding, says Wang.

General financial constraints are also being felt more and more by infrastructure planners, road operators and maintenance staff. It is something of a perfect storm for them. At the other end, they see road damage on the rise due to the increasing weight of personal and commercial vehicles. Payloads are up and heavy batteries are boosting the weight of the increasing number of electric passenger vehicles. In fact, this has inflated vehicle weights by around 25% in recent years, estimates Q-Free’s Bain.

“WiM allows planners to design roads and bridges for end-user trends while operators and maintainers use the data to optimise maintenance regimes on legacy road and bridge designs,” he says.“WiM systems can prevent lasting damage to legacy design bridges by alerting authorities to risk vehicles in real time or applying a deterrent through post incident enforcement.”

Even with some push-back from the public sector - which has concerns over the cost - there are enough forward-looking authorities and agencies to make the market look favourable for suppliers and makers of WiM systems. Bain believes that the arguments for the installation of more WiM systems are inescapable. “While the reasons for implementing WiM vary, more authorities and departments with different priorities are recognising its value. WiM is becoming more commonplace and used by a diverse range of customers to improve safety, reduce costs and make more informed infrastructure decisions. What's even more promising and exciting is the increasing collaboration between local and central authorities, together along with infrastructure vendors and suppliers such as Q-Free, to develop strategies and realise outcomes beneficial to all,” says Bain. “As public budgets tighten, collaboration will be essential for maximising the value and return on these investments to all stakeholders.”

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