Bulging tires, sagging suspension, and tilted chassis are clues {that a} truck needs to be chosen for weighing at roadside weigh stations. However with rising truck site visitors, authorities don’t have the assets to weigh each truck. Giving overloaded vehicles a move on weighing jeopardizes highway security and infrastructure life. “Chubby automobiles have an extended braking distance and an extended stopping distance, so that they put all different highway customers in danger,” mentioned Andreas Keller, head of site visitors monitoring with Thurgau Site visitors and Lake Police, Switzerland. Further weight additionally accelerates harm to pavement and bridges. In comparison with a 1-ton axle load, for instance, a 2-ton axle load causes 16 occasions extra pavement put on and tear and a 3-ton axle load, 81 occasions extra.
The Thurgau Site visitors and Lake Police of Switzerland explains the way it effectively identifies overloaded vehicles utilizing an automatic weighing system based mostly on Kistler Group’s KiTraffic Digital Weigh in Movement (WIM) answer.
Treatment: precisely weigh automobiles as they transfer at velocity
Thurgau Police is certainly one of a rising variety of site visitors authorities utilizing KiTraffic Digital, which is powered by Cisco industrial ethernet switches. Image a truck shifting down Switzerland’s A7 motorway. Kistler’s extremely correct quartz sensors, put in flush with the pavement, seize its gross weight inside 2.5% tolerance because the truck travels at speeds as much as 100 km/h (62 mph). These sensors are related by and obtain Energy over Ethernet (PoE) from a Cisco Catalyst IE9300 Rugged Sequence swap housed in a close-by roadside cupboard. The swap swiftly transfers the measurements to a PC in the identical cupboard for weight calculations.
Chubby truck? An officer on the subsequent truck cease receives an alert on a pill displaying the burden, automobile picture, and quantity plate captured by a digital camera deployed with the sensors. The truck is directed to the static weigh station, the place it’s weighed once more and acceptable motion taken (in some international locations, site visitors authorities skip the static weighing and routinely implement penalties). Compliant vehicles proceed with out weighing a second time, avoiding congestion and serving to Thurgau Police sustain with rising truck site visitors. “The hit price for business automobile overload inspections is larger due to the system, as a result of we are able to particularly verify the automobiles which are overloaded,” Keller mentioned.
“By transmitting weight knowledge with the velocity and accuracy wanted for enforcement, Cisco industrial switches are serving to us pave the best way towards safer, extra environment friendly, and sustainable transportation.” – Ingrid Sagorz, Product Supervisor for Site visitors Options, Kistler Group
5 benefits of Cisco industrial switches for WIM
Cisco industrial switches play an essential behind-the-scenes position within the KiTraffic Digital platform:
- Synchronize sensors. Fines are enforceable as a result of trucking operators can’t argue that weights reported by KiTraffic Digital are related to one other automobile or inaccurate. That’s as a result of the Cisco switches synchronize the interior clocks of all related Lineas Digital sensors with Precision Time Protocol (PTP).
- Transfer knowledge at Gigabit Ethernet speeds. Officers have to know an obese truck is approaching in time to sign the driving force to drag over for weighing. With Gigabit Ethernet uplinks, Cisco switches can ahead knowledge from Kistler’s sensors to the PC that calculates automobile weight in close to real-time. After a tire prompts a sensor, enforcement officers usually obtain the report in 2-3 seconds.
- Match neatly into cramped roadside cupboards. One Cisco IE9300 swap with its 24 downlink ports connects and powers as much as 21 Kistler pavement sensors (sufficient for 5 lanes), a digital camera, an industrial PC that calculates weights from the sensor knowledge, and a router.
- Face up to harsh outside circumstances. Cisco switches are designed for excessive roadside temperatures, from freezing to sizzling and humid, guaranteeing that community connectivity and knowledge transfers are by no means compromised by the surroundings.
- Final so long as the pavement. Changing gear deployed on distant freeway stretches each few years is impractical. “The lengthy lifespan of Cisco industrial switches makes them a very good match for our sensors, which regularly outlast the pavement the place they’re put in,” mentioned Ingrid Sagorz, Product Supervisor for Site visitors Options at Kistler Group.
A partnership for success
To make the venture profitable, Cisco Gold Companion Netcloud has been actively supporting Kistler since 2020 as a part of the analysis and planning of IoT community parts for the Weigh in Movement initiative.
Safer roadways, much less stress on pavement
With WIM, Thurgau Police are making roads safer by taking unwieldy, pavement-damaging automobiles off the roadway. Enforcement officers are extra environment friendly as a result of they know which vehicles to weigh. Compliant truckers save time. Vacationers take pleasure in safer journeys, due to fewer potholes and overloaded vehicles. Briefly, WIM is a WIN for everybody—besides trucking operators that don’t adjust to weight rules.
Study extra about Kistler Group’s WIM answer and rugged Cisco industrial ethernet switches within the case research.