Cestel Portable Bridge Weigh-in-Motion Systems for Monitoring Roads, Bridges and Vehicles

Cestel develops portable bridge weigh-in-motion (WIM) systems for vehicles and monitoring the structural properties of roads, pavements and bridges.

Weigh-in-motion systems for roads and bridges

Developed in collaboration with the Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute, Cestel’s SiWIM® solution weighs vehicles and monitors bridge behaviour.

The system analyses bridge behaviour in response to traffic weight loads, and transforms collected raw and aggregated data into information for road authorities.

SiWIM data provides detailed information for each vehicle, including lane of travel, axle loads and distances, axle configurations, gross vehicle weight, vehicle speed, and vehicle class.

The SiWIM® format then adds the pavement aggression factor of each vehicle’s equivalent single-axle load (ESAL) and a quality estimator such as how well the calculated bridge response matches that established by the measurement.

This data meets the requirements of most traffic analysis, pavement and bridge load applications.

Depending on the length of measurement, the number of sensors and additional equipment used, collected data can be used for a wide range applications that include:

• Road maintenance or planning
• Preselection for enforcement
• WIM data distribution
• Calculation of damage to the pavement
• Supervision of dangerous goods transport
• Planning special transport routes
• Bridge assessment

Road maintenance optimisation

Management of the road network requires a variety of information to support maintenance decisions.

The reliable traffic loading data collected by SiWIM supports the decisions related to infrastructure maintenance. As a result, roadworks, downtime and maintenance costs are reduced and with lesser impact on the environment.

Traffic data collection for road planning

Building traffic infrastructure is a time-consuming, expensive and usually irreversible process. It is therefore important to support the analyses and planning documents with the most accurate traffic loading data possible.

Being a flexible and an entirely portable tool for measuring traffic loading levels, the SiWIM system collects quality vehicle data for planning purposes.

Temporary WIM systems for enforcement applications

Cestel’s WIM systems are suitable for temporary installations and static weighing campaigns.

SiWIM identifies the potentially violating vehicle and sends weighing results to enforcement units, together with a photo of the vehicle and its licence plate if an appropriate camera is installed.

WIM data distribution

Road sections differ from one another and exact traffic loads can only be controlled by WIM systems.

Where this is not feasible, automatic traffic counters provide basic vehicle counting, and specific models are used for distributing SiWIM-based traffic data to neighbouring road sections, enhancing the quality of collected information.

Pavement damage calculation

Road pavements are structures with limited lifetime, and are designed to withstand a specific number of ESALs. Increased heavy traffic due to construction works or similar activities in their vicinity can significantly shorten their expected lifetime.

By applying a methodology for calculating road repairs based on the SiWIM system data, road repair costs can be shared between all parties involved.

Bridge assessment solutions

Enhanced assessment of old or damaged bridges requires highly accurate measurements.

SiWIM is designed to provide information to apply realistic, site-specific traffic loads and calibrate the bridge’s analytical model according to the measured response.

Route planning for special transport

SiWIM detect special transports as they pass the instrumented location. Vehicles are identified by combining a specific classification scheme with a licence plate recognition (ANPR) camera.

About Cestel

Cestel is a company affiliated with scientific organisations and associations such as the Intelligent Transportation Society, the World Road Association, and the International Society for Weigh-In-Motion.

The company has participated as a leading partner in numerous successful international projects, with a client base ranging from national ministries and government agencies, to academic institutes and private firms.