Highways Agency and VOSA join up for WASP – the Weight and Safety Partnership

VOSA prepare to intercept a targeted overweight lorry
WASP real-time screen information, including vehicle identification and individual axle weights
WASP Step 1
WASP Step 2
WASP Step 3

Weighing up the problem

VOSA has long sought a more- effective means of targeting non-compliant vehicles, especially HGVs, and it is an issue that the Highways Agency has wanted to deal with too. So when the subject came up at a joint workshop attended by the two organisations, Jamie Hassall, Network Operational Policy Team Leader in the Highways Agency, realised there was a simple solution.

“We realised that between us we already had all the resources we needed to identify overweight HGVs,” explains Jamie. VOSA keeps a database of all vehicles in the country, and how much weight each is legally permitted to carry. The identifier for the vehicle is the registration number – which can be read with an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) camera system. And at various points across the country, the Department for Transport has already placed weigh-in-motion sensors, simply to help monitor traffic flow and the weight of goods vehicles.

“The innovation was to link these together for the first time in the UK,” says Jamie. Project WASP (Weight and Safety Partnership) was born.

The sting

The operation sounds deceptively simple. Weigh-in-motion sensors (WIMS) in the road are used to weigh suspect vehicles. They operate entirely unobtrusively, measuring weight at normal road speeds, though a little less-accurately than weighbridges. At the same point, ANPR cameras record the number plate. These two pieces of information are matched up with the VOSA databases and if a vehicle is overweight, an alert appears on a computer terminal. A VOSA roadside team is contacted which then intercepts the targeted lorry and leads it to a nearby calibrated weighbridge for the precise actual weight to be ascertained. The actual weight is then fed back into the system, continually monitoring and helping to gauge the accuracy of the WIMS.

“Though ANPR and WIMS were already in use in our pilot area, they were not in the same location,” says Jamie. “The sensors had to move 20 metres or so down the carriageway – and we had to make sure the sensors and cameras were close to a weighbridge so VOSA could do the main assessment quickly.”

The system was piloted in the West Midlands and soon created a buzz among freight operators. “Project WASP was big news from the outset,” says Highways Agency Project Manager Alan Rowley. “Due to its high success rate, the rogue haulage operators were quick to learn that something was happening.”

“But it was the accuracy that was more important,” says Alan. “The computer system meant VOSA was able to identify overweight vehicles far more easily – there was a 700% increase in its targeting effectiveness.”

VOSA Senior Network Development Engineer, Malcolm Jones explained, “Currently at our site in the West Midlands, when the WIMS are used to identify and target overweight vehicles, over 90% are issued with prohibitions. These vehicles are then removed from the road until such time as their weight is reduced to within the legal limits.”

Fine tuning

Important calibrations were made to the system once it was set up. For example, although the ANPR camera could identify the vehicle’s number plate, for the teams on the ground, another camera took a side view of the vehicle which showed details such as make, type, a haulier’s name, lorry colour and the axle configuration.

“Because there’s a tiny delay between recording the information and identifying the vehicle,” Alan says, “the side view camera had to be set up to take the picture 100 milliseconds after the ANPR.”

It was these tweaks to the system that characterised what Alan describes as “a real team effort. Everyone was committed and the results speak for themselves.”

The West Midlands pilot scheme won numerous awards for both the technology involved and the successful operation of the project. More significantly, VOSA gained Department for Transport funding to roll it out further across the network.

Widening the net

Two other sites are now in operation and during 2008 several more will follow. Highways Agency colleagues in each of our regions will help VOSA manage the rollout. But there’s still plenty of potential to develop the technology, as Richard Taylor, ANPR Policy Manager, explains: “As the WASP national rollout gathers pace, the technology will help reduce unfair competition that overweight lorries can exploit and levels of compliance are expected to increase significantly.”

In figures

• One seriously overweight lorry can cause as much wear and tear on the road surface as 80,000 cars.
• For every 100 vehicles that were stopped on the basis of human judgment, prior to WASP, only around 12 would actually be overweight.
• In its two-year pilot, Project WASP has led to the prohibition of over 90% of overweight vehicles.

Project WASP: The basics

Sensors in the road weigh the vehicle as it travels at normal road speed, while cameras record the number plate and a side view of the vehicle.

The information is matched up with the vehicle’s technical record and other VOSA databases and if the vehicle is overweight on gross, train or incorrectly loaded per axle, an alert appears on a computer, and an operator instructs VOSA colleagues who are waiting at the roadside to intercept the lorry.

The VOSA intercept team then escorts the targeted lorry to a nearby weighbridge for an official calibrated weight assessment. Trucks that are breaking the law can be prohibited and their drivers and operators can be fined.

For further information please contact Richard Taylor, Highways Agency, 1st Floor, Woodlands, Manton Lane, Manton Industrial Estate, Bedford, MK41 7LW (0123 479 6232; Fax: 0123 479 6017; E-mail Richard.taylor@highways.gsi.gov.uk).

© 2008, Innovation & Research Focus