Delivered during the 2016 Southern African Transport Conference (SATC), held in Pretoria, South Africa.

1. Proposed alternative to assist
current overload operations in
South Africa
4 July 2016
Arno de Coning
Post graduate student

2. Presentation overview
• Introduction
• Deficiencies in existing overload control measures
• The role of law enforcement
• Verification of the nature of current overload behaviour
• Discussion of results
• Incentivising road users to become compliant
• Proposed improved overload control system
• Conclusion and recommendations
• Acknowledgements

3. Introduction
• Overload used for general road management
• Minimize damaging effects on the road
• Impact of the overloaded vehicles is not limited to road surfaces but
have large economic impact as well
• Current procedures can cause delays for legal vehicles
• Some extreme cases can some vehicles to bypass
• Deliberate bypassing can take place

4. Introduction
• Overload may occur to increase competitive edge
• Industries have multiple approaches to reconcile productivity with
overload compliance and vehicle design
• Road Transport Management System (RTMS) for self regulation as
an example
• Objective to lower illegal activity and increase accuracy of overload
control and minimize large economic impact on road infrastructure

5. Deficiencies in existing overload control measure
• Lack of uniformity across different region
• Lack of integration of subsystems
• Traffic control centres (TCCs):
– Static scales
– Weigh-in-motion (WIM) – High Speed(HS) and Low Speed (LS)
– Screener lanes
– Traffic officials with alarm and image based system from the WIM
– Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)
– Piezo-electric vehicle counters and axle configuration identifiers
– Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
– Manual enforcement

6. Deficiencies in existing overload control measure
• Pros and Cons of common TCC configuration
• Static scale used in isolation
– Legally and illegally load vehicles forced to visit static scale
• Combined WIM and static scale
– Threshold can cause multiple reweighs of vehicles loaded close to the
legal limit
– Illegal vehicles can evade the operation and traffic officials may miss the
vehicles trying to evade the system
• Screener lane WIM
– Help prevent vehicles not driving over WIM
– Can still drive incorrectly over the WIM
– If no officials are present this can go unnoticed

7. Deficiencies in existing overload control measure
• ANPR cameras
– Over all lanes can be linked to eNATIS
– Loopholes if illegal number plates
• RFID at the WIM
– Higher levels of integrity of linking vehicles
– Need RFID tag deployment over entire vehicle population
• Limitation do occur with each configuration
• WIM screener lane, ANPR for non-compliance, and static scale
currently most effective

8. Role of law enforcement
• TCC are in some form dependent on manual supervision and
enforcement
• Road agencies and toll road operators suffer when enforcement is
lacking
• Common occurrences
– Traffic officials at WIM cubicle wrongly identify vehicle that triggered the
WIM
– Daily quota reached as soon as possible
– Overloaded vehicles in some cases bribe officials
– Vehicle ignore the WIM signaling and official may not pursue the vehicle
on route

9. Role of law enforcement
• Traceability of actions of the traffic officials and no formal record of
systematic law enforcement evasion by specific fleet of vehicles
• Stationed officials can have difficulty identifying WIM triggered
vehicle
• Reach daily quota as soon as possible
• Financial gain can take place when a vehicle has been declared
overloaded
• Official dispatched in some cases are hesitate to pull off vehicles
when a HSWIM is triggered, or they can pull off these vehicles and
accept bribes to not impound the vehicle

10. Verification of the nature of current overload
behaviour
• Lack of economic incentives to comply
• Limitation of current technology integration
• Non usage of systems that are in place
• Self-enrichment opportunities

11. Verification of the nature of current overload
behaviour
• Verification of the extent of these issues need to be investigated
before a proposal for improved overload control can be made
• Historical data analysis is conducted
– Behavior of road user during certain periods of the day
– Performance of existing overload control systems
• Data represented
– Durban to Johannesburg
– Johannesburg to Beitbridge

12. Discussion of results
• Vehicle movement as function of time of day
• 40 to 80% of traffic is heavy vehicles between 19:00 and 07:00

13. Discussion of results
• Overloaded statistics for eight (8) WIM stations
• 78 to 82% of heavy vehicles weighed
• 7 to 9% was overloaded
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2013 2014 2015
Percentage
Years
Total vehicles weighed Total vehicles not overloaded
Percentage Weighed Heavy vehicles Percentage of Overloaded of Weighed Vehicles

14. Discussion of results
• Current TCCs with WIM and static scale lack a reliable linking
method that triggered WIM vehicle and if it was spotted at static
scale
– Static scale data can be analyzed
– WIM triggered at a 10% threshold and fully functional
– Static scale should have vehicles within the 10% threshold in an ideal
situation
– Vehicles did not trigger the threshold was incorrectly directed to the
static scale

15. Discussion of results
• Static scale visits that could have triggered the WIM
• 60% of statically weighed vehicles should most likely not have triggered the
WIM

16. Discussion of results
• Triggered WIM that was overloaded
• 90% of WIM triggers were not overloaded

17. Discussion of results
• Analysis of WIM and static scale data to determine if the vehicle
likely triggered the threshold
– These vehicles would not voluntary visit the static scale
– Directed deliberately to the static scale for daily quotas
– Prove of inefficiencies in the system
• Isolation of TCC static data to the next scale will ensure a repeat
weigh
• 6 to 8 reweighs can potentially occur from Durban to Beitbridge

18. Discussion of results
• Heavy vehicles (fly by night) tend to travel after hours when traffic
officials presence is low
• On average 9% of vehicles weighed by the WIM is overloaded
• Around 30 to 40% of vehicles weighed at the static scale should
have been directed to the scale
• Around 10% of vehicles that should be directed to the static scale
was overloaded
• 3 to 4 % of vehicles were overloaded

19. Incentivising road users to become compliant
• Overload control in some cases are ineffective and penalizes
compliant road users without deterring road users to break the law
for financial gain
• RTMS self-regulation used as starting point towards preferential
treatment and proved successful in specific industries with effective
enforcement
• Efficient system can grant tangible benefits to compliant road users,
implement severe penalties for offenders and increase traceability of
law enforcement
• Effective way to differentiate between compliant and non compliant
road users

20. Proposed improved overload control system
• Phase 1
– Extended system of certification of compliant heavy vehicle operators
– RFID tagging of vehicles
– RFID readers to identify certified vehicles at WIM and ANPR
identification on non-WIM lanes
– Integrate WIM scales with some level of intelligence
– Automated directing of vehicles with booms if WIM was triggered
– Uncertified vehicles can be seen as a high risk
– Link with vehicles with eNATIS if they evade WIM lane
– A task force can be used when an illegal number plate or overloaded
vehicle is detected
– Long term track record can be determined and compliant behavior of
certified users can gain preferential treatment

21. Proposed improved overload control system
• Phase 2
– Road user internal scales certification
– GPS tracking integration to provide summary of movement from internal
weigh to final destination
– Electronic declaration before dispatch of origin and destination, intended
route, nature of the load, and TCC to be passed
– Combined electronic dispatch with GPS data can determine overload
risk
– GPS data to determine when the vehicle traveled past a TCC and verify
by WIM or ANPR on which lane they traveled
– Reconcile WIM and static scale measurements with submitted weights
– GPS based electronic tolling to deter vehicles to take secondary routes

22. Conclusions and recommendations
• Deficient in some respects
• Non-uniform configuration at different TCCs
• Loop holes in the system to exploit
• Lack of integration and information sharing between TCC and stand
alone WIM sites
• Proposed alternatives to have a more uniform design of control
infrastructure, integration of datasets, incentives for compliant road
users, and on-going real time system supervision
• Increase automation with a dedicated task force

23. Future work
• Complete pilot site installations
• Overcome resistance to change
• Intelligence development for the TCCs from historic data and pilot
sites
• Benefit quantification for multiple stakeholders
– Road agencies
– Transporter / Road users
– Toll concessionaires
• Implementation cost analysis
• Full cost benefit analysis for multiple stakeholder

24. Acknowledgement
• SANRAL
• Mikros Gauteng
• Mikros KZN
• KZN DOT
• CSIR

25. Questions?

26. Thank you