Talking Freight
Commercial Vehicle Size and Weight
September 17, 2008 Transcript
Jennifer Symoun:
Good afternoon or good morning to those of you to the West. Welcome to the Talking Freight Seminar Series. My name is Jennifer Symoun and I will moderate today's seminar. Today's topic is Commercial Motor Vehicle Size and Weight. Please be advised that today's seminar is being recorded.
Today we'll have three presentations, given by Tom Kearney of the FHWA Office of Freight Management and Operations Size and Weight Team, Ric Athey of the Arizona Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Division, and Jeff Honefanger of the Ohio Department of Transportation Permit Section.
Tom Kearney joined Federal Highway Administration's Office of Freight Management and Operations serving on the Truck Size and Weight Team in April, 2007. His job duties focus on integrating truck size and weight program activities with the overall freight management and operations program at FHWA. Tom serves on the FHWA/FMCSA Smart Roadside Oversight Team and Ad Hoc Groups. His work focuses on researching and supporting the integration of automation based approaches to truck size and weight enforcement. Tom also manages the Truck Parking Facilities Program for FHWA. Tom serves as a Master Instructor for the National Highway Institute and also has served as an instructor for NHI's FHWA's Highway Program Financing course since 2002. Prior to joining the Truck Size and Weight Team, Tom served as a Statewide Planner in FHWA's New York Division Office. Prior to joining FHWA in February 2000, Tom worked in the New York State Department of Transportation's Planning Division for fourteen years. He was the Highway Inventory Program Supervisor at NYSDOT just prior to joining FHWA. Tom received his undergraduate degree from Albany State University and received a Master's Degree in Regional Planning, with joint specialties in Urban and Transportation Planning from Albany State as well. Tom currently serves as on the Community Advisory Board for Albany State University's Graduate Program in Regional Planning. Mr. Kearney has been a member of the American Planning Association since 1983 and currently serves on the Washington County Planning Board.
Ric Athey currently serves as Assistant Division Director of the ADOT Motor Vehicle Division's Enforcement Services Program, with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Business. Ric oversees twenty-two Ports of Entry with six of them be International Ports, vehicle inspections, and registration compliance. After a stint in the Air Force, Ric pursued a career in law enforcement that was enriched with duty assignments in Patrol, Accident Investigation, SWAT-Bomb Technician, FBI Academy, and District Commander. After 29 years, Ric's retirement enabled him to accept his current position with the Motor Vehicle Division in 1999. Ric is a member of the AASHTO Highway Subcommittee on Highway Transport and was selected by FHWA to participate in a European Scan Tour, visiting seven countries regarding size and weight and weigh in motion.
I'd now like to go over a few logistical details prior to starting the seminar. Today's seminar will last 90 minutes, with 60 minutes allocated for the speakers, and the final 30 minutes for audience Question and Answer. If during the presentations you think of a question, you can type it into the smaller text box underneath the chat area on the lower right side of your screen. Please make sure you are typing in the thin text box and not the large white area. Please also make sure you send your question to "Everyone" and indicate which presenter your question is for. Presenters will be unable to answer your questions during their presentations, but I will start off the question and answer session with the questions typed into the chat box. Once we get through all of the questions that have been typed in, the Operator will give you instructions on how to ask a question over the phone. If you think of a question after the seminar, you can send it to the presenters directly, or I encourage you to use the Freight Planning LISTSERV. The LISTSERV is an email list and is a great forum for the distribution of information and a place where you can post questions to find out what other subscribers have learned in the area of Freight Planning. If you have not already joined the LISTSERV, the web address at which you can register is provided on the slide on your screen.
Finally, I would like to remind you that this session is being recorded. A file containing the audio and the visual portion of this seminar will be posted to the Talking Freight Web site within the next week. We encourage you to direct others in your office that may have not been able to attend this seminar to access the recorded seminar.
The PowerPoint presentations used during the seminar are available for download from the file download box in the lower right corner of your screen. The presentations will also be available online within the next week. I will notify all attendees of the availability of the PowerPoints, the recording, and a transcript of this seminar.
We're now going to go ahead and get started. Today's topic, for those of you who just joined us, is Commercial Motor Vehicle Size and Weight. Our first presentation will be given by Tom Kearney of the FHWA Office of Freight Management and Operations Size and Weight Team. As a reminder, if you have questions during the presentation please type them into the chat box and they will be answered in the last 30 minutes of the seminar.
Tom Kearney:
Jennifer, thank you very much. Let me start at the end and just explain to everyone that Jeff is in Ohio right now and is one of half million residents without power. So Jeff does send his regrets. He is also the permit section director and with a natural catastrophe like Ike the permit section tends to be a rather busy place. Their presentation could have been also presented by the permitting task force director -- or chairman of the AASHTO Subcommittee on Highway Transport. Denny is now in a bunker down in Louisiana an they are recovering not only from Ike but also coordinating relief efforts during Hanna. In light of the colleagues I have involved in the topic, if you look at the screen here, I can see that it's a little bit confusing. In the upper left corner. Bottom left corner is the national civil engineering research center of France located in Paris, France. This past May 19-22nd an International Symposium on Weigh in Motion was held in conjunction with the 10th Conference on Heavy Vehicle Truck Technology. I serve as implementation team leader for the European scan on truck enforcement technologies. I was approached to submit a paper and presentation together for a plenary session as part of the weigh in motion track. This is the presentation that Debby walked through in Paris. I wanted to share this with you.
A final report was issued. It's available on the FHWA international program's website, www.international.fhwa.dot.gov. The CVISN program at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Truck enforcement technology integration. As you can see, we had federal employees, David Jones the high speed data manager, office of highway policy information. Julie Lane, truck size and weight team. I was a statewide planner in New York. That was the fed side. State side we had a few bridge engineer. Jodi Carson as I've mentioned a TTI college professor. We had a variety of backgrounds. I guess I'd be negligent if I didn't mention the California technology research group. Very instrumental in the technology group who are out promoting different interests on the team. A lot of expertise and when it comes to truck enforcement, it kind of turns into a wide topic rather quickly.
The investigations before we left, we broke it into five subject areas, truck enforcement technologies. The countries we visited, how were they using the technologies, procedures and approaches for enforcement. How was enforcement being delivered. Roadside and in the field. How was it being supported in the home office. Unique applications of data. Were there any unique uses of tradition at data. Public/private funding approaches. We did see some examples. Public/private aspects. Enforcement programs and truck toll programs. Then practices to harmonize enforcement techniques. Europe under the EEU26 membership countries, and a lot of coordination needed EU permits and a lot of different member states and EU with blanket standards. Here modernization was something we keyed on as well. The scan up front. TTI did the research. We set up a matrix regarding those topics on the prior slide who has best practice approaches. Who would get the most advantage. They had it deployed in use supporting enforcement in the field. ZAG is a national engineering research consumption. Supporting research, supporting the public interest. Switzerland, the Federal Roads Agency. Research entity located out side of Bern, comprehensive costs of trucks vibration, noise, messages, impact on infrastructure. Analysis of costs when they talk about overloaded trucks. Federal, going through their approach on mobile enforcement how they were abusing advanced technology to support many enforcement sites.
This past February we had Swiss officials come over for a visit to give us more details on what was going on. In Germany our day was spent in Berlin. We met with the automated toll collect system. The distance they're traveling. Integration of on board identification systems talking to roadside detection along with GPS with the GIS-based representation of the network, locating the events, which were moving the trucks. Locating them on roads subject to tolls. Paying tolls on the fly based upon the roads they were on. Very enlightening day. A lot of implications tied to toll collect. Netherlands including the research weigh in motion technology. Best practice when it comes to database management for weigh in motion. Belgium was just getting started with their weigh in motion enforcement program. An interesting discussion with them on how they were approaching it. They were using low speed weigh in motion to directly issue citations to truckers. Belgium also was located the same building with a lot of EU analysts so we met with some folks from the Federation of European Highway Research Labs. Learned a lot of coordinated research in France. Very, strong aggressive weigh in motion. Monitoring system located around the country. Couple of hundred WIM locations. Regional research centers receiving data regularly. Data being made available to a variety of users. In Paris at LCPC we met with a world leading expert in weigh in motion. He shared with us some of the research that France was undertaking. Implementation was the key. A lot the same but a lot different. In some cases different than what we were doing in the U.S. going to Europe was a handful of opportunists who wanted to go and get details to -- the expertise being a wide variety was a strength to the team. Detailed worksheets for us and given worksheets to take notes. Different subject areas to focus in on.
Enforcement aspects. I was being asked to focus on the data side of things. Everybody had different assignments. We all kind of blended our notes at the end of the day and Jodi was able to write the report on the fly. Ted is a former FHWA employee and he absolutely is driven toward technology transfer and his role supporting the scan program is to facilitate enhancements to U.S. programs by learning from what the others are doing in other nations. Ted has been a very strong partner and a very strong asset to me for implementation in the past two years. Post scan we had a whole bevy of things. There were 34 of the team identified. Far too many implementation opportunities that could actually be focused on. We went with top 7. That was heavy enough. We put the implementation plan together and here's the top seven that we identified that the each limitation was planned around. Bridge weigh in motion. They have good vehicle control sites in Switzerland. Pre-screening for mobile enforcement in a virtual of nations. Applying WIM for direct enforcement. It is now occurring on ramps. We learned it was an interesting business model to weight enforcement being used in Netherlands that involved a high speed WIM in data. Some work in the U.S. on that as a follow up. I'll show you a slide as how we delivered on that one. University of Alabama who was our bridge maintenance engineer is now the director of maintenance down at the Alabama DOT. SPR funds through UCT program. University of Alabama research consortium Birmingham and the three Alabama universities collaborate on cooperative research.
Bridge weigh in motion system. There were deployments on two sites at this point in time with research done. There were plans to deploy at a third site. In North America who developed bridge weigh in motion which is being aggressively deployed in Europe right now. Civil engineering technology and integrating it into the good afternoon's business mod -- government's business model. Facilitating the support of deployment in North America right now. Cestel has been over to Birmingham, Alabama supporting the bridge team. The team continues with their research efforts with Alabama DOT permit directors. Trying to get the bridge weigh in motion as a new tool and enforcement into their new program. The workshops history now. My colleague attended the workshop the second week in August. It was down in Birmingham Alabama, working with Ted, the scan implementation team was able to support travel so that Bernard Jacob of France, Eugene Obrien and Mr. Hans Van Loo and Mr. Hans Van Saans out of the Netherlands all four of these four leading world experts in bridge WIM technology research team and participants that went to Birmingham in early August.
We're looking for good things to come out of this project. Police commander of border high volume trucks moving from Italy into north Europe control the number of trucks in the tunnel at any given time as of the November 2001 tunnel fire. There is a national ordnance. This facility is to hold trucks to offer them overnight storage and parking accommodations. No trucks travel at night in Switzerland. It is against the national law, very easy to enforce. Nighttime truck, you are under arrest. Trucks move on trains at night. Switzerland owns the rail network. This control site at the north approach using a heavy level of automation to process trucks, legal trucks processed in and out in under two minutes. If the truck is subject to any kind of further inspection, if it's a vehicle of interest it's subjected to more detailed inspections. It can take up to 25 minutes to process a truck fully in the entire site. The enforcement officials can impound on site. 700 trucks store them for over night. They get that kind of volume. Arizona is in for some very interesting aspects with automated truck aspects moving the program forward. Swiss came into Washington with me. We had Maryland CVISN programs and then they attended and presented to the Subcommittee on Highway Transport. But very, fulfilling visit by the Swiss.
Next slide is the safety implications. Dan is a very strong asset in the United States regarding truck safety and research. Dan receiving money through Alabama SPR program. Research into the safety implications of trucks. Presented a paper and made a presentation on the heavy vehicle truck technology in Paris back in May. N It's on the international website. How the Dutch get a lot of bang for the buck. Very, very ambient distribution to a lot of users within the Dutch government. Weight enforcement community. Enforcement officers get copies of reports every Wednesday morning showing the trends in loading on specific motorways so they can retailor and focus their attention quickly. Hans Van Saans is now in the United States living in Washington D. C. as the Dutch liaison with TRB. He is a consultant with Chiseler Corporation as the technical consultant and he is supporting the Dutch government in their use of technology and truck enforcement. Very good assets that we kept in touch with over in Netherlands.
Prescreening. Something near and dear to my office. What we want to get is the enforcement, more intelligence out in the field. We want to bring technology to the roadside deliver to roadside so we can integrate and know where the trucks that are legal are, the trucks that are within weight, one dimension that are also driver company and vehicle safety okay. Weigh stations and bringing the trucks in. The forecast and see the scary forecast when you hit the FAF website, there's no way they can keep up with the commercial vehicles that are going to be pushed onto the network over the next 20 years. Building block. Snap together approach to enforcement and it was not perfect program over night at witness. It was one step at a time. One leads to another. Cambridge Systematics is working with me on a study that will be completed by the end of March. Did a site visit to Minnesota Michigan was an interview state. Indiana was an interview state. Our investigation into the use of technology expanded. We're still in the research mode through the end of September doing telephone interviews and site visits. I thank all the state participants and support of the study. Fabulous resource nationally to all enforcement officials as a product. It's all emulated under the REMOVE Project in Europe.
20-7 I'm not going to linger on. You're going to hear about it at the tail end. That's the presentation I will present for Jeff. Let's save that one Jennifer. Much done to date. More to do. Others aspects here's a laundry list of things ahead. I wanted to share with you not just this laundry list but under the implementation plan a lot done. Yes that's true. This year activities we'll be focusing on is documentation of the technology aspects of the heavy good control sites. We want the construction specifications for the low cost. Construction site force the Swiss full control sites. How do they interact? What kind of functionality? What kind of business need are they serving? A contract has been left and will be completed focusing on documenting the Swiss system. We're also going to be planning, conducting, and delivering a national one day brainstorming strategic session long term plan for WIM. We want to bring the U.S. brain trust together for a one day session to come up with short, medium and long term goals much more effective, enforcement of using technology. Those will be the things we'll be focusing on in the next coming year. We should be close to the wrap up. If you have any more questions, give me a call. There's my contact information.
We don't have any questions typed in but we'll take a few minutes if anyone has any questions over the phone right now. There are no questions.
T. Kearney:
Jennifer this would be a great point to turn it over to Ric. I talked about Glendale and the workshop in there. Arizona has been a full partner. On the truck sites, the scan implementation team with me. John was with Washington State Patrol, Ric with Arizona. We put our heads together and worked hard at creating and delivering the one day workshop in Glendale. What I'd like to do is hand it over to Ric, I talked about the Swiss. Explain the beautiful picture we're looking at right now. Let us know what the good things Arizona is up to.
Ric Athey:
Thank you Tom. Good afternoon. As you see, the first slide is the great state of Arizona and that's our sunset. Today is going to be about 97, low about 67, so we're pretty happy right now.
Ports of Entry. I think this is where we need to begin and as you see in this slide, the first officers that began size and weight and also the facilities. Every state had them, as the traffic volumes were much lower, speeds of travel not allowed anywhere near as demanded today, and truck-trailer combinations were all the same design or at least configured alike, they performed their functions reliably, and some what efficiently. Times and needs have changed.
Today's traffic volumes require large, multi-acre facilities, to properly screen commercial traffic. This is the new Nogales facility on the Mexican border. We have 22 different fixed locations that are identified as ports of entries. There are three different types of ports of entries into Arizona.
There are six international ports and I just want to talk a little bit about Nogales. Nogales during produce season, which is pretty much about five months out of the year, ends up with 4000 trucks a day, along with the partnership of Customs and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Some of those trucks cross the border and it's the same truck, anywhere from three or four or five times during that day. As far as vehicle inspections we touch about 20% of those trucks a day.
Again, there are six international ports. Nogales is being already designed for a new port in 2010. Security is the main focus. San Luis Federal should be completed. It's a brand new port with the three agencies. That should be finished in 2009. We have Douglas Federal, Naco, Nogales, Sasabe, Lukeville and the last one is the San Luis Federal port of entry. The San Luis Federal location has the San Luis II project underway to build a new, more efficient facility near the current crossing.
Fixed ports. There is Yuma I-8, Ehrenberg I-10, equipped with a sorter system, Topock I-40, equipped with a sorter system, St. George I-15; this is a joint or shared port with Utah. Sanders I-40, equipped with a sorter system and San Simon I-40' equipped with a sorter system. We have nine secondary route fixed ports of entry. There are two mobile operations with the north using a selected assignment rotation to maintain presence in the region. Now these are your interstate ports in red. The next slide would be the mobile and we used the southern route with over 14,000 safety inspections from the border.
The purpose of the ports of entries. Size and weight is a priority. Our mandate is the protection of the tax payer's investment in our infrastructure. This activity is also critical to the Arizona Department of Transportations ability to obtain and utilize federal highway funds for road construction or repair.
Safety inspection associated tasks. There are businesses that spring up around our POES, including truck stops, restaurants, repair facilities, even banks. AS ADOT can be the largest employer in some remote areas, reductions of staffing or changing our operations can dramatically effect a local area economic situation.
In this slide, parked bumper to bumper, end to end, the vehicles weighted at these facilities annual would be a line of trucks that would go completely around the earth 2.3 times. These numbers are only possible due to the fact we use electronic screening at our interstate ports. Without the Weigh in Motion and Sorter Systems we would not be able to maintain a safe or effective screening process. As you see at the bottom we weigh over 7 million trucks annually. Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance Level I Inspections at Ports of Entry have resulted in discovery of contraband totaling up to 6,000 pounds of marijuana in a single load, and individual drug-related cash seizures as high as $1.6 million that was found on one vehicle alone. Drugs are an everyday occurrence in truck enforcement on a state wide basis. The very nature of our business becomes more dangerous as time passes.
The return on investment from direct collections is approximately $18 million a year. Cost savings to the state on pavement damage is somewhere between $12-$50 million on a yearly basis. We estimate our return to be for every dollar spent on POEs, we return $11.00 to the Highway User Fund.
MVD builds highways. Total MVD direct deposits into the Highway User Fund were $1.8 billion. Arizona cities received $633,072,866. Arizona counties received $526,701,394. Urban controlled roads, which have to do with our building partners in the cities and counties received $104,774,337. ADOT'S entire operating budget is financed through MVD collections.
The Motor Vehicle Department does perform safety inspections at ports of entry and at mobile details at all locations in the state. This includes rest areas, pull outs made especially for them and roving officers that can be anywhere. Safety inspections are, due to the process and necessity, a slow time, consuming task. The key to an effective safety program is the method used to identify those vehicles that are the most in need of inspection. Random is effective to a certain extent, every vehicle inspected is not possible at times, and so what you spend your resources and time on is very important. An effective screening process that identifies vehicles at risk for safety violations is critical to the success of this activity.
Safety facts. Approximately 9% of the vehicle related deaths are commercial vehicle related. 80% of these traffic accidents are the fault of non-commercial drivers. Because of the laws of physics, when a larger vehicle hits a smaller vehicle, the smaller vehicle is always the loser. Around 5000 people die each year in crashes involving large trucks, and about 85% of them are not the truck's occupants.
Arizona as a corridor state. A large number of commercial vehicles travel our roads to reach other destinations. We are a preferred route for several different corridors, including the I-10 and I-40 Coast to Coats Routes. But we also have a significant role in the Canamex route. It is very clear that Arizona has a significant impact on the nationwide movement of goods by this truck flowchart. You basically have to pass through us to get from coast to coast. The central areas of Arizona are going to be severely congested and the major interstates will require a new process to effectively screen truck traffic. We must include electronic screening at all of our inspection sites to keep up with demands of increased traffic.
Solutions to problems. Here is that Swiss solution for Arizona that we are looking at right now. This is a product, which actually weighs the vehicle. It actually has the sensors to look at height. The number of axel weights, gross weights and the concepts and solutions implemented by EU agencies is admirable and exciting. We have a few issues that it may not deal with such as vehicle configurations a different size and weight. I think I'm going to let Tom talk about this particular project or actually the size and weight facility that the Swiss operates, which was really exciting because not only did their officers go out and stop the truck and bring the truck to this facility, but it actually printed the citation out from a computer right there and given to the truck driver.
T. Kearney:
And Ric, it automatically sent it to the court, the citation that the officer ripped off the printer, was submitted to the local magistrate at that time. Fully automated.
And the truck driver had to pay for that before he moved?
Yes, sir. They were holding a truck from a Bulgaria and the company had to send him some money because the driver was broke.
R. Athey:
The Swiss seem to have more control over the size or configuration of the vehicles passing through their inspection sites. This evidenced by the sensor arrays being a boxlike structure over their traffic lanes. It may work to their advantage in this area but we are required to move exceptional loads on a routine basis through our state.
While not every vehicle is this size and weight as you see in this slide there are more and more of these loads which must be moved across our state. The entire Western United States and in particular Arizona is involved in a project to replace or renew the primary transformers for electrical power for entire regions of our grid structure. This includes New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah. Traffic control and backups behind the slow moving load is a great concern to us. Notice a number of truck versus non-commercial trucks being held up behind this load. Approximately 42% of the total ADT of normal freeway traffic and may be more than that already. But current predictions say we can expect a 70% increase by 2020, all compounding our problems of processing this traffic. Automated stations using existing technology and processes are readily available. All systems related to or built from components already in service at our interstate ports, all systems and components are interchangeable and complement all applications we are doing. We are trying to incorporate all of the same methods of electronic screening as our EU partners. The sensors are a bit different as needs and configurations are not the same but the basic concepts as far in and as far as end results are. The automated stations, these stations use electronic screening to the ultimate advantage. They reduce but not eliminate the need for manpower. They allow screening of vehicles at highway speeds. Allowing legal vehicles to proceed with no delay. Again, we're in the process of reengineering our ports of entry and have at least five in inspection sites being planned. All with sensors for size and weight and transponders for identify indication purposes. With these five, we're also going to add another nine which will be a total of 14.
Our virtual weigh station data flow, the truck crosses over the sensors, information or data is processed by the roadside computer and transmitted to the roadside officer. In this next slide, this is the information transmitted. It can be changed or modified as needed. It can be either transmitted to a station or laptop computer near a vehicle to allow realtime enforcement to be applied to a stream of truck traffic by only pulling those vehicles over that needed to be fully screened.
Obtaining static weights on pull off areas. These are examples of roadside enforcement. This is using the semiportable ramp scales or the hand and weight scales. Hoover Dam bypass, which will be now the primary focus as the Kingman project now being implemented. This project will support the new bridge being built over the Hoover Dam which should be ready by 2010. This new bridge will dramatically change the truck routing now in place and cause an increase in truck traffic (estimated to double or maybe more) to the Kingman Port and surrounding highways. This will involve the long distance haulers of freight and goods between the east and west coasts. As you see, that bridge going across, this is what it is supposed to look like. We had a failure there when strong winds came up and blew over the cranes which put us a year behind in the completion of this project.
Kingman Port of Entry. The challenge is to install sorter systems to cover highways 93 and state route 68. Again, 93 toward Nevada and the new bridge, inbound 93 from Nevada to points west, inbound 68 into Arizona and Nevada, and outbound 68 towards Nevada. Our goals are to utilize electronic screening to its maximum at every point possible. The screening of vehicles while they are traveling is the only way we will be able to maintain an effective screening option with the projected traffic heading our way. The projected challenge is finishing the project. As you see the truck coming across, it's the weigh in motion sensor that goes through the electronics. The roadside message says whether the truck comes into the Port of Entry or continues.
The primary challenge for Arizona right now is not the technology, it's not the knowledge needed and it's not the types of sensors and how they are applied. The Swiss were able to get something we don't have and that's funding. If funding was available we would install these systems at all our inspection sites. More or new studies are not necessary. We have the systems which work. We need a funded source. That is my presentation. Tom, we're also looking at that Swiss model regarding the size and weight structure that you had seen earlier. We're looking at possibly putting -- or completing a Swiss model at the Kingman Port prior to the bridge completion. I have also requested 23 additional personnel for that Port of Entry for 2010.
T. Kearney:
The Swiss control sites that Ric showed in his presentation, the over head quandary would shoot laser beams over the truck that would create a profile of the height and weight of the vehicle, length as well. Measurements that were identified as legal tolerants and extra legal dimension. We saw a trucker come in that was over height he was able to dampen his suspension and bring the back into compliance with height. Height is a feature. The Swiss want to know that before you get to the tunnel. So the enforcement with the scanners was key to them. Low cells they had about 8-12 cells on a weigh bridge. They got very accurate measures. The officer operating in the office was able to see extra legal dimensions if it was weight, the weight value at axel tandem highlighted in red. If it was a length or width or being over weight or being a vehicle of interest, based on visual observation of dimension he would bring the vehicle in. He would stay with the truck while the operator in the station that Ric was showing. One guy was able to shoot all the technology, get a profile of the truck regarding illegal aspects being highlighted. Push a button when he saw red elements on the truck. Citations coming out of the printer going to the local magistrate. Everything was very efficient. They could move a truck right through in like a minute and make a measurement of size and weight in no time. They also had a second shed where they could bring the truck through and had a walk under where the inspectors could walk under and check suspension systems and check breaks and everything. There was break testers in this building. They were very low cost. They were under a million dollars. When Rick talked about Kingman, the interest in Arizona is more to the dimension of a control site that we heard the Swiss talk about, that was a 53 million-dollar project that the Swiss government was willing to support as we heard Ric say. The Federal Roads Agency would build and then hand to the canton the enforcement agency. Let toe would operate it and own it after construction. That's the kind of partnership cantons delivered enforcement but the federal role was the build the facilities and enforces the laws. $53 million. Why we're going over specifications of the next step in the scan is not only is Arizona interested in looking at the very specific elements and details of the technologies used, Kansas is contemplating weigh stations. They are still a best practice state with mobile enforcement but they are looking and want to make an informed decision back and forth. There is still an appetite out there for weigh stations as these concepts are being moved forward. We want to capitalize on the eyes of automation because the traditional manual inspections were never going to be able to keep up with the truck traffic flow rates. Thank you very much Ric. That was a very good presentation.
R. Athey:
Thank you Tom. We have four interstate ports that are in the process of being designed with Sanders Port of Entry, located east I-40 and scheduled for construction in 2010. Kingman Port of Entry is very important to us because of the bridge opening. The biggest challenge as always is finding qualified personnel and budget restraints.
J. Symoun:
We have questions for Ric. We'll go through those that were typed in and then will also open the phone lines. In reference to the ports you were showing at the beginning of the presentation, are they truck crossing or are they rail crossings?
R. Athey:
Those are truck crossings.
J. Symoun:
The next question. You may have answered this. What about the Nogales Port of Entry, does that serve both road and rail?
R. Athey:
That is strictly road at that time. Let me say another thing, Kingman has a Terminal for the containerized freight which serves road and rail. There is another Terminal being considered at Yuma and another at Picacho Peak between Phoenix and Tucson.
J. Symoun:
Okay. Thank you. Next question, what does Arizona use to determine which vehicles to perform inspections on?
R. Athey:
It depends upon mobile enforcement or it depends upon those trucks coming into the port and during the officers spot check determines if an inspection needs to be completed.
J. Symoun:
Okay. Next question. It seems as those Arizona segregates commercial traffic from personal vehicles. Is there any inspections done at regular rest stops?
R. Athey:
We do have the mobile scales at rest stops and pull out areas. We do not inspect cars just commercial trucking.
J. Symoun:
That's all we have typed in. We're going to go ahead and open the phone lines to see if anyone wants to ask questions over the phone.
Operator:
If you would like to ask a question over the audio portion, plus star one on your touch tone phone. Unmute your phone and clearly record your name. Your name is required to ask a question. If you want to withdraw you may press star two. One moment for a response please. At this time we have no questions.
J. Symoun:
We'll move onto our final presentation which we're going go back to Tom Kearney again.
T. Kearney:
This is the presentation that Jeff Honefanger apologizes he's not available to make. It was very interesting. Jeff shared with me utility companies took off for the Texas coast about the middle of last week in anticipation of Ike, but the storm did a lot of damage in the Springfield area Sunday afternoon and evening and there were not a lot of repair crews to address the problem. My thoughts go out to him.
I'm going to go through this in about five minutes. The National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) 20-07 project is designed to support AASHTO's Subcommittee on Highway Transport (SCOHT) research needs. Ric was involved with the scan; Ric is very involved in the oversight panel on this project as well. Basically 20-07, I do invite you to download it and read it at your leisure. The concept of going into the vault of all the information we brought back, there's a tremendous amount of information we brought back from Europe. We wanted to open the vaults up and put together a lot of key pieces of information and target the executive level of the state DOTs to give them compelling information to the importance of size and weight enforcement so that people like Ric would be able to get the funding and executive level support he needs to move his program forward.
Jim Lynch is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Highway Transport. He is the champion of this task 254. Jim as a director of a DOT thought that his peers don't truly understand the difficulties that people like Ric and his staff face and the benefits that technology lend to Ric in his staff in doing their jobs. Jim Lynch had the NCHRP project approved in FY09 to look at the best practices. real quick response information, get it out to the DOT executives. A seven member Panel made up of five State and two Federal officials, is overseeing the Project work generated under this task.
Jodi Carson was handed all the presentations on a lot of the different aspects of the scan when we visited the six countries in that whirlwind 16 day period in 2006. She was a very good person to line up for this project. Jodi delivered and the panel approved a proposal she submitted in a 16 month timeframe. It should be wrapped up late spring next year, summer of next year.
Eight tasks were laid out. Come out with the menu of supporting technologies. Summarize relevant European policies and procedures. We blended that with the summary of the U.S. management policies and procedures. Task four is heavy. Read it on your on time. Read it when you have time, sorry. I don't mean to assign homework. Read it when you have time. Basically task four lays out the consents of the real value of this effort. It blends tasks two and three together in here big time. U.S. approaches, European approaches, to enforcement informational sheets. The areas that are laid out those informational sheets are what Jodi is working on, review of the enforcement activities in general. People that want to use but don't understand the heavy maintenance and calibration needs tied to this technology. Oversize and overweight - the permit, routing and monitoring aspects. The agency wide benefits of data that's used for size and weight enforcement and how it can be used for other aspects in supporting the program. The brief right now, Ric and I were tasked with reviewing the brief. We offered comments. They are being readied distribution at for the AASHTO meeting in October. We're in the last lap of comments on those five areas.
Task number five has been blended into the briefs. It was a stand alone on the proposal. The panel asked that it be reengineered. The implementation process in the U.S. has now been incorporated into the informational briefs themselves so it's one stop shopping in the five subject areas. It's scheduled for fall because we want it available at AASHTO Final versions there's the target down on the bottom, AASHTO fall meeting. Jodi is going to make a presentation also at the Subcommittee on Highway Transport in February. Here they are. Annual meeting in October, subcommittee the DC meeting and highway transport and up to four state level visits are targeted for outreach. That will feed into a piece of number 8, the final report schedule for completion summer 2009.
Now in my role my truck technology included so many states looking at different aspects of your program, best practices under way, putting together our study with making sure that information is available back over to this project so we're not duplicating research. We're coming out with the same kind of message in the FHWA investment as we are with the AASHTO investment. Any questions on 254? That was a whirlwind tour. I apologize. I'm sure Jim would have done a much better job on this. Ric do you have anything to add?
R. Athey:
No. Working with this project, we've had numerous conference calls and after reviewing this, we think we've got a great product and we'll see what comments there will be in October.
J. Symoun:
Okay. Thanks Ric. We have two questions typed in. I'm going to put them both to you Tom and Ric. Feel free to jump in. We have a little bit of time left, if you have any questions type them in. Most agencies are under fiscal constraints, essential bridge and pavement projects are not getting funded. What makes these projects compelling?
T. Kearny:
Let me take the first crack at that. This is the typical question. When you have critical pavement reconstruction projects, a deficient bridge in the capital program, a preference toward making these highly visible very obvious needs, addressing them as soon as possible because you can measure the benefits that project delivery needs like that are very, very evident, pronounced and very profound. Therefore, if you want to continue to be repairing bridges and pavements, then don't do a lot of enforcement and don't care about what's going on out there. Most trucks run legal. I really want to say that. It's the small population of trucks that are illegally loaded. Those are the ones that command Ric's attention. Those are the trucks that have incredible detriment on the short term. Can go to every seven years based on the loading. Bridges having to be replaced never coming close to realize their expected service life and having to be replaced in half that time will continue to mount up huge capital needs if indeed, we are not able to accommodate effective enforcement, keeping the trucks, not doing excessive damage to the illegal loading practices and not accelerating the maintenance needs that are going to keep mounting
R. Athey:
I think that's why we're increasing our mobile details. We just did a mobile detail on a large company, where the employees became disgruntled and about the overweighted trucks and we actually put several out of service. Now the company is complying. We met several times. Those with the mobile efforts that's exactly what it's going to have to take. We're going to have to increase our enforcement, but create partnerships with companies, making sure that everyone is in compliance.
J. Symoun:
What is the outlook for implementing a technology in a majority of the states in the near, midterm and long term future?
T. Kearney:
That's a very general question. Just about every state has deployed technology for weight detection in one way or another. There's a growing area of weigh in motion. Traditionally weigh in motion technology was a major contributor to our long term pavement performance program, LTTP they were supporters of WIM. The support pavement research needs over finding now is we go back and see the beauty of understanding approximate static weights of trucks using the technology. I don't want to get into the physics and dynamics and how well a WIM can represent the weight when it's traveling 70-miles an hour, uneven distribution of load on its back, however there is an approximate of knowing when it's illegally weighted. Ric I'm sure you hear the same thing every enforcement officer say, when we see an over loaded truck, we want to bring them in and do extra enforcement because nine out of ten times we are going to be writing them a small book of citations that weight is not the only aspect of illegal practice that's coming in to play here.
R. Athey:
Absolutely not. That gives us an opportunity to check that truck for safety issues. In talking about a thousand pounds, if it can be adjusted, then we allow that truck to adjust. But there are other concerns that each state is concerned with. Making them safe for the motoring public.
T. Kearney:
Let me take bridge weigh in motion. Answer your question with regard to an innovative emerging technology. Research frame work to develop the technology, subject it to the code environment. It was also introduced and subjected to the cost 323, weigh in motion equipment. For us to the technology transfer in if U.S., the goal was to have the University of Alabama research team do a deployment successfully research it integrate it to Alabama DOT research program. Highway patrol at the roadside to enhance the use of the technology for prescreening for enforcement. We had a series of peer to peer events to look at the technology and the various aspects of how it benefits the DOT, how it benefits the highway patrol, move out with a peer fund -- pooled fund study and eventually move toward national deployment. What we're talking about is a five to ten year time horizon to take a new emerging technology and deploy it across the U.S. looking foreign answers for truck enforcement on a very short orbed. With the study what I'm seeing is a lot of interest in technology transfer among the states high level work going on. Research community working with right now, starting to talk to each other big time, Indiana talking to Minnesota, research between those two states. Technology transfer occurring. So deployment of new technologies on a peer to peer basis amongst the states it can happen over a 3 year basis. Regarding the benefits of protecting infrastructure, how well do the states make information available to each other. I'm seeing a tremendous support for each other out there through this technology study. Keep up the good work partners.
J. Symoun:
Ric anything else you wanted to add?
R. Athey:
No, Tom has finished it eloquently. We all have to work together on this and we can put the new technology and make it to our benefit and also industry's benefit. I think that's the direction we need to go and we need to expedite it.
J. Symoun:
We have one last quick question typed in before we close out. I believe the question is asking, will the presentation for 254 be online?
T. Kearney:
Absolutely. No one is going to have any problems getting to these informational briefs. But the whole goal is to have it wide distribution and readily available.
We'll see if at the executive level the presentations being made to the executives at AASHTO, which are your state DOT commissioners and directors, once that's done, the distribution of the staff level becomes the reminder of time. Remember this is what we are trying to work on and it ties to that. It helps tie program delivery protecting the infrastructure. We're not trying to do truck enforcement; we're trying to protect the infrastructure.
J. Symoun:
Thank you Tom and Ric. We're almost out of time. T I'd like to give a brief mention about the FHWA Freight Peer to Peer Program. The Freight Peer-to-Peer Program (P2P) puts public sector freight transportation professionals in touch with experts in the field and provides technical assistance in order to enhance overall freight skills and knowledge. The program is available to public entities, including State departments of transportation (DOTs) and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs). To learn more about the program or to arrange a peer exchange, or to discuss participating as a peer/expert please visit the Freight Peer to Peer web site.
The next seminar will be held on October 15 and will be on Rising Fuel Prices/ The Effects of Energy Prices on Global Trade Patterns. If you haven't done so already, I encourage you to visit the Talking Freight Web Site and sign up for this seminar. The address is up on the slide on your screen. I also encourage you to join the Freight Planning LISTSERV if you have not already done so.
Enjoy the rest of your day!
