Technical Feasibility Assessment of On-Board Mass-Monitoring (OBM) Devices: a) Accuracy and Robustness b) Ancillary Systems Analysis - Pilot Testing Plan

A reasonable response to transport industry pressure for increasing efficiency is for road authorities and regulators to allow higher mass limits (HML) heavy vehicles onto the road network. This forms part of an overall strategy to encourage "multi-combination vehicles" or MCVs (Haldane, 2002) onto portions of the road network that can withstand greater mass loadings. One of the tools used currently and increasingly by regulators and road authorities in Australia to monitor heavy vehicles (HVs) is the Intelligent Access Programme (IAP) under the auspices of Transport Certification Australia (TCA). The IAP monitors the location, timing, speed and configuration of a HV using vehicle telematics and usually incorporates GPS satellite tracking. The first large-scale application of IAP to HVs will be on HML vehicles. To manage the mass aspects of expanded HML access in the meantime, an interim solution involving a self-declaration function allowing transport operators to identify when they were operating at HML will be part of the initial monitoring of HML HVs under IAP. The reason for this was, in setting up IAP Stage 1, the TCA Board realised that an on-board mass monitoring solution for HVs was potentially several years away. In so doing, the TCA Board realised that the long-term solution to managing HV mass would be via on-board mass monitoring technology. To this end, TCA’s 2006/07 business plan, endorsed by the TCA board in July 2006, contained two new research projects to ensure the expansion and value adding of its services to the transport industry and road authorities. The projects have identified technical issues regarding on-board mass monitoring systems including: * Determination of tare vs. payload using OBM system at an evidentiary level; * Accuracy, robustness and tamper issues of OBM components (mass sensors, connections, power supply, display unit etc.); * Potential use of electronic brake system (EBS) data to cross-check measurement results from OBM system; and * Potential standardization of OBM components to achieve interoperability between trailers fitted from different supplier. Accordingly, one of these projects will provide a standard to ensure interoperability between any IAP certified prime mover and trailer monitoring devices. The other project will investigate the feasibility of on-board vehicle mass-monitoring devices for IAP use. This test plan addresses that portion of the feasibility assessment project concerned with: * accuracy as determined by measuring OBM outputs vs. certified scales; and * tamper-evidence as garnered from changes to dynamic signals from OBM systems, including from electronic braking systems (EBS) and engine control modules (ECM). To do so it sets out a programme to test suitable and available OBM systems to be reported by the TCA when the on-board vehicle mass feasibility of project is completed in 2009.