Tracking of heavy vehicles for estimating heavy load distribution across the highway system and Weigh-In-Motion Calibration

Despite heavy vehicles representing a small portion of vehicles on the roads, they have significant influences on pavement, safety, environment, energy consumption, and the performance of traffic system. Weigh-In-Motion (WIM) has been employed as a major technology to collect heavy vehicle data on freeways. Because WIM systems are costly and sophisticated, how to effectively utilize the valuable WIM data, monitor WIM stations' performance, and identify out of calibration stations are especially important. In the Phase I study, we had successfully demonstrated an innovative and yet practical approach for heavy vehicle tracking that combined the use of both WIM and inductive loop signature data. In this Phase II project, we propose to develop a Commercial Vehicle Tracking System (CVTS), which tracks heavy/commercial vehicles across WIM stations, Continuous Counting Stations (CCSs) and Continuous Vehicle Classification (CVC) stations in the freeway network. The integration of the inductive loop signature and WIM technologies offers a low-cost solution to monitor the performance of WIM stations, to identify out-of-calibration stations, and to collect truck movement data. The proposed CVTS can be used for various transportation applications such as emission estimations, freight management, planning and modeling, and performance monitoring of the national freight network required by MAP-21.