Bulging tires, sagging suspension, and tilted chassis are clues {that a} truck ought to be chosen for weighing at roadside weigh stations. However with rising truck visitors, authorities don’t have the sources to weigh each truck. Giving overloaded vehicles a cross on weighing jeopardizes street security and infrastructure life. “Obese autos have an extended braking distance and an extended stopping distance, in order that they put all different street customers in danger,” mentioned Andreas Keller, head of visitors monitoring with Thurgau Visitors and Lake Police, Switzerland. Further weight additionally accelerates injury 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 Visitors and Lake Police of Switzerland explains the way it effectively identifies overloaded vehicles utilizing an automatic weighing system primarily based on Kistler Group’s KiTraffic Digital Weigh in Movement (WIM) resolution.
Treatment: precisely weigh autos as they transfer at velocity
Thurgau Police is considered one of a rising variety of visitors authorities utilizing KiTraffic Digital, which is powered by Cisco industrial ethernet switches. Image a truck transferring 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 change housed in a close-by roadside cupboard. The change swiftly transfers the measurements to a PC in the identical cupboard for weight calculations.
Obese truck? An officer on the subsequent truck cease receives an alert on a pill exhibiting the load, car picture, and quantity plate captured by a digicam 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, visitors authorities skip the static weighing and robotically implement penalties). Compliant vehicles proceed with out weighing a second time, avoiding congestion and serving to Thurgau Police sustain with rising truck visitors. “The hit price for industrial car overload inspections is greater due to the system, as a result of we are able to particularly test the autos which might be 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 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 car 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 tug over for weighing. With Gigabit Ethernet uplinks, Cisco switches can ahead knowledge from Kistler’s sensors to the PC that calculates car weight in close to real-time. After a tire prompts a sensor, enforcement officers typically obtain the report in 2-3 seconds.
- Match neatly into cramped roadside cupboards. One Cisco IE9300 change with its 24 downlink ports connects and powers as much as 21 Kistler pavement sensors (sufficient for 5 lanes), a digicam, an industrial PC that calculates weights from the sensor knowledge, and a router.
- Face up to harsh out of doors 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 tools 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 Visitors Options at Kistler Group.
A partnership for success
To make the undertaking 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 autos off the roadway. Enforcement officers are extra environment friendly as a result of they know which vehicles to weigh. Compliant truckers save time. Vacationers get pleasure from 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 laws.
Study extra about Kistler Group’s WIM resolution and rugged Cisco industrial ethernet switches within the case research.
