This year we organized a two-day workshop regarding questions with overloading rate and therefore consecutive road maintenance. This results also in traffic  safety and unequal position of transport companies (picture 1).

Our workshop was attended by:

Mr. Koen de Groot from Dutch Traffic Inspectorate has presented the role of traffic inspectorate in this project

- introduction of a pro-active model collection of overloading and register plate   data for defining a list of companies that are breaking the law

- such companies are visited  by the inspectorate which they give them a warning and are under 2 months of surveillance during which should they decrease overloading by 75% and then are removed from the list

- in case of their non-cooperation or they do notdecrease their overload the companies face extra rigorous measurements

- conclusion: traffic from foreign countries is approx. 25% of all traffic, prevention actions are effective, gross amount of road tankers, results with WIM system and video surveillance is satisfactory

- increas traffic surveillance over hazardous substances

Mr. Len Witteven from Dutch Police has presented the role of policein this project:

- good understanding of several aspects and mutual noninterference

- understanding directives "engineers approach"

- involving court of law and lawyers

- signed contract of involving 40 police officers in WIM project

- WIM as pre-selection and effective penalization

- unified data base reachable for all involved in project

- improved penalization policy with no extra job for court of laws

- time of work adjustment (4 a.m.)

Dr. Henny Ronald from Dutch Ministry of Transport has presented a policy handling overloading:

- overloading presents a big problem in the Netherlands. 15% of traffic is estimated as overloaded. Maintenance cost have due to overloading increased for € 17 billion, that is 15% of all funds for maintenance.

- two years ago a special project was started with intention of cutting traffic overload

- all partners facing this problem were invited to a project: road direction, police, traffic inspectorate, court of laws and road transport association

- combine different approaches to same problems

- assure team work for all participants

- road direction: better roads, cutting road maintenancecosts, rationalization

- police: increased safety, acquiring new techniques, rigorous penalizations

- traffic inspectorate: rigorous measurements, better overview of problem

- court of law: no extra work

- transport companies: assured fair play

- carrying out research of weighing-in-motion with video surveillance and possibility of penalization with WIM data

Mr. Hans van Loo from Dutch Ministry of Transport has presented development of WIM systems:

- accuracy and reliability of WIM systems, data analysis, evaluation of controls

- daily diagrams show beginningof overloaded traffic and their intensity

- automatic enforcement with WIM systems

- systematization with traffic regulations

- stage of WIM system: WIM+video, pre-selection, planning of controls, pro-active controls, automatic enforcement

Mr. Robert Brozovic from Cestel Ltd. has presented a short overview of weigh-in-motion measurements in Slovenia: (history of weighing, overview of weighing equipment, best practice,...)

- short history

- use of mobile scales, 3 groups daily

- statistics of weighing with mobile scales involving police

- efficiency and accuracy weighing with mobile scales is in progress

- yearly sum of fines are between 500 million Sit to 2 billion Sit

- overloads can be decreased with increase of control and not with raising penalties

- use of WIM results for defining better control with mobile scales

-WIM measurements for planning, collecting data on 30 locations on the heaviest main road in year 2003

- in Slovenia there are in average 19% overloaded transport vehicles (2002) which increases our road density in total by 34%

Mr. Ales Znidarsic from ZAG has presented a variety of use of WIM measurements

- at traffic management, pavement applications and bridge applications

- usage of WIM measurements for traffic management and road monitoring

- usage of WIM measurements at assessing bridge maximum overload

- future spread of WIM usage

Mr. Cveto Gregorc from company OMEGA Consult Ltd. has presented the economic aspect of diverted traffic from highways

- economic study on effect of diverted traffic

- analysis results show extra costs, increased emission (CO₂,SO2,..), increased pollution with noise

- analysis data includes actual WIM measurements overloading

- extra costs due to overloading and therefore shorter life span

Conclusions were as follows: