Roads sense overloaded trucks
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Operators tuning overweight vehicles have more chance of being caught under a new VOSA trial currently running in the West Midlands.
It uses weight-in-motion sensors that were fitted to many roads, originally to measure traffic weight and volume. But now they are linked to the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system — and VOSA is keen to find more sites to roll out this technology.
Trucks passing over the sensors are recorded on the ANPR cameras. The system then calculates axle and overall truck weights and overloads, and also takes a picture of the vehicle.
Police and VOSA officers will stop overloaded vehicles further along the road and issue prohibitions.
So far the trial has proved highly accurate in identifying overloaded vehicles, including foreign trucks.
Malcolm Jones, a specialist ANPR engineer, reports that VOSA is also using the data gathered to identify the best time to deploy staff to target non-compliant operators with the greatest effect.