About SiWIM

CESTEL d.o.o. | Špruha 32 | SI - 1236 Trzin | [email protected] | +386 1 568 17 19 | www.cestel.
eu
Benefits of using the SiWIM® system
BENEFITS USING THE SiWIM SYSTEM

CESTEL d.o.o. | Špruha 32 | SI - 1236 Trzin | [email protected] | +386 1 568 17 19 | www.cestel.eu

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Introduction ...................................................................................... 1
SiWIM® system ............................................................................ 1
Data collection ............................................................................. 3
Classification of vehicles ................................................................ 3
Accuracy of SiWIM® measurements ................................................. 3
Comparison between static and dynamic measurements ..................... 4
Influence of traffic on pavement ...................................................... 4
2 SiWIM® areas of use .......................................................................... 6
Planning & Design (of roads and bridges) ......................................... 6
Maintenance (of roads and bridges) ................................................. 7
Bridge assessment ........................................................................ 8
Pre-selection for enforcement ....................................................... 10
Road damage remediation ............................................................ 13
Exceptional (special) transports .................................................... 15
Transportation of dangerous goods ................................................ 17
3 Benefits for the user......................................................................... 18
Technical specifications for design of public roads ............................ 18
Real traffic load data for road design .............................................. 19
Maintenance of road and bridges ................................................... 20
Bridge assessment - case ............................................................. 21
SiWIM® integration in the national roads control center ..................... 22
Pre-selection for enforcement - case .............................................. 23
Violation reduction ...................................................................... 24
Road damage remediation - case .................................................. 25
4 Proposed strategy of SiWIM® use ....................................................... 25
Comparison between B-WIM and R-WIM ......................................... 25
Comparison between B-WIM and ATC ............................................ 25
5 Conclusion ...................................................................................... 26

1 Introduction
Weigh-in-motion (WIM) techniques have been traditionally used for measuring vehicles’
weights while travelling at highway speed. WIM systems provide detailed data on gross
weights, individual axle loads, velocities and axle spacing of almost all vehicles passing the
system. Bridge WIM (or B-WIM) is a special type of WIM that uses existing instrumented
bridges from the road network as the weighing scales. The original B-WIM algorithm, which
F. Moses developed in the late 1970’s, requires information from strain sensors, attached
to the soffit of the structure, and from the axle detectors, which are attached to or built
into the pavement. Several systems using these principles were introduced in 1980’s but
had no major impact on the WIM market. In the late 1990's considerable improvements
was done as a part of WAVE (“Weighing-in-motion of Axles and Vehicles for Europe”), a
research project financed by the European Commission’s 4th Framework Programme. The
main work addressed improvements of accuracy, user-friendliness, portability and
durability of these systems.
Regardless of the system used, all B-WIM systems are applied on existing instrumented
bridges or culverts. Selected members of the structure are instrumented and strains are
measured to collect information about the bridge behaviour under the moving vehicles.
Strains are recorded during the whole vehicle pass over the structure and such redundant
data provides useful information when the influence of dynamic effects due to vehicle-
bridge interaction has to be accounted for. This is an undeniable advantage over the
pavement WIM installations where measurement of an axle lasts only a few milliseconds.
Until recently all B-WIM systems required axle or vehicle detectors on the pavement close
to or on the bridge to provide vehicle type, velocity and axle spacing. This has changed
with the new generation of the SiWIM® system.
SiWIM® system
SiWIM® system is a bridge WIM system that was initiated in the WAVE project where by
its end reached the phase of a working prototype. In order to transform this prototype into
a standalone product, cooperation between ZAG, Slovenian National Building and Civil
Engineering Institute and the Cestel Company from Ljubljana was established soon after
completion of the WAVE project. SiWIM® MkIV, as used around the world, is the portable
version of the fourth generation of SiWIM® systems which is composed of:
• Up to 32 strain transducers, attached to the bottom side of the superstructure;
strain transducers are used to provide information about behaviour of the bridge
under the moving vehicle;
• strain transducers per measured traffic lane to detect speed and axle spacing of the
vehicles;
• signal conditioning unit, composed of signal amplifiers and other electronics for
conditioning of the measured signals;
• power supply, battery, cabling;
• Windows® Embedded based computer;
• mobile HSDPA/UMTS/GPRS connection with a remote supervising computer via VPN
network;
• casing with electronics;
• SiWIM® software.
1
Figure 1: Typical Bridge Weigh-in-Motion instrumentation
Figure 2: SiWIM® electronics
SiWIM® performs dynamic measurement of axle weights in real time, which are, with the
help of the advance algorithms, transformed to be as close as possible to static weighing.
The accuracy of the transformation from the dynamic to static axle loading mainly depends
on the quality of the calibration of the system, the type of bridge and the evenness of the
pavement on the access ramps and on the bridge.
2
Data collection
SiWIM® system stores data in its own text format (NSWD and XML files) which contains
the following information about each individual vehicle:
• date,
• exact time (hour, minute, second, 0/000) of the passing vehicle,
• site name,
• direction,
• speed,
• weighing session name,
• front and rear licence plate number of the vehicle,
• warning codes,
• vehicle class according to provided classification table,
• axle configuration (i.e. 113 for five axle semi-trailer with a triple axle),
• gross vehicle weight,
• axle loads and load per axle group,
• length from the first to the last axle,
• axle spacings,
• temperature at time of measurements,
• indication of overloading,
• QE (Quality Estimator), a parameter describing quality of the measured results (how
well the modelled and measured signal match).
NSWD/XML files are post-processed with the SiWIM-D software package, which among
others:
• searches for outliers (doubtful results),
• reclassifies vehicles, if necessary,
• counts single, double, triple and other axles etc.
Results are stored in metric units, but presented in imperial units in this report.
Classification of vehicles
SiWIM® system classifies vehicles primarily based on axle spacing. There are no limits for
number of classes which can be used. For some specific types of vehicles with similar axle
spacing, such as 2-axle trucks and vans, their class is fine-tuned based on the gross vehicle
weights and axle loads. For practical purposes vehicle classes are merged into categories.
SiWIM® system is shipped with the default classification scheme and it is responsibility of
the user to adjust, update and harmonize it with valid regulations within the country. For
the measurements in Alabama, this was done by Cestel team prior to the measurements
(see Appendix).
The SiWIM® system can work without specifying the correct categories, but users should
be aware that system will not display the correct vehicle type and Data Processing software
will fail to accurately evaluate the results based on vehicle categories.
Accuracy of SiWIM® measurements
Accuracy of bridge WIM results depends on the type of the structure and particularly on
the evenness of the pavement. Accuracy is evaluated according to the European
specifications for Weigh-in-motion (COST323) by comparing WIM results to the values
obtained on a more accurate static scale. These specifications define an accuracy class with
a letter and a number in the parentheses. Class A(5) is the most accurate one and is
followed by classes B+(7), B(10), C(15), D+(20), D(25) and E(30). The number in
3
parentheses is the confidence interval δ at the confidence level ϖ of approximately 95 %

of all results.
Accuracy class B(10) for example means that approximately 95 % of the gross weight
results can be expected between +/-10 % from the true static value. Single axle loads can
be expected in the interval +/-15 % and group axles in the interval +/-12 %. Accuracy
classes achievable with bridge WIM systems range from the excellent class A(5) on very
good structures with even pavement and optimized calibration (per vehicle type, velocity
compensation, temperature compensation, auto-calibration…) to still acceptable class
D(25) on less ideal bridges with rough pavement. Typically classes B(10) or C(15) can be
expected.
Comparison between static and dynamic measurements
Dynamic values measured with weigh-in-motion systems differ from the static values
because of dynamic influence such as bouncing of the vehicle, air resistance and breaking
or accelerating of vehicles. All moving vehicles bounce on their tires and suspensions.
There are two main components of this motion (Figure 3):
• low frequency vertical bouncing of the sprung masses, typically at 2 to 4 Hz; and
• high frequency bouncing of the axles (wheel hop), typically at 10 to 15 Hz.
The magnitude of the bounce depends on the roughness of the road, the type of suspension
and the vehicle’s speed.
Figure 3: Dynamic of a driving vehicle: body bounce and axle hop
Influence of traffic on pavement
Influence of traffic on pavement is usually accounted for with the number of the Equivalent
Single Axle Loads (ESALs). The common procedure to evaluate cumulative ESAL value for
certain traffic can be described by the formula:
4
where:
ESAL - traffic loading expressed as sum of nominal (equivalent single) axle loads
fa - axle factor which depends on the type of the axle and the reference axle load
ft - factor representing influence of the type of the tyre and type of suspension on
the axle
P - axle loading in tons
𝛼𝛼 - factor depending on type of the pavement and the damage phenomena; in most
countries a constant value of 4 is used
N - number of axles
Based on the information from AASHTO, the following parameters were taken into account
in the present study:
reference axle loads 82kN for the single axles, 150kN for double axles and 213.6kN for
triple axles (an axle load equal to the reference axle load gives ESAL value 1) and fourth
power (𝛼𝛼 =4) of the axle load.
This gives the following fa factors for different types of axles:

fa1 = 2.2120 for single axles,
fa2 = 0.1975 for double axles and
fa3 = 0.0480 for triple axles.
The fourth power cause the traffic load measured with ESALs to grow exponentially in
comparison to weight measured in tons. In other words, an axle that is overloaded by
20% (12 tons instead of 10 tons) will cause 100% higher impact on the road.
Figure 4: Relation between weight(tons) and traffic load (ESAL’s)
5
2 SiWIM® areas of use
Planning & Design (of roads and bridges)
Building traffic infrastructure is a time-consuming, expensive and usually irreversible

process. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to support the analyses and planning
documents with the most accurate traffic c loading data possible. The SiWIM® system,
being a flexible and an entirely portable tool for measuring the real traffic loading, is an
ideal solution for collecting quality traffic data for the purposes of planning.
Road infrastructure is a precondition for a well-functioning transport system. Its planning,

construction and maintenance is a long, expensive and usually irreversible process.
Therefore it is essential that the most effective (traffic and financial) scheme is selected
and that within this scheme all components can account for the growing traffic in the future.
It is often difficult to calculate and understand the real benefits of knowing realistic traffic
loading with respect to mobility, environment and safety (on time, fuel and vehicle
operating savings). For this reason new methods are used for technical and economic
calculation, which use detailed SiWIM® system results as input.
Figure 5: Road planning and design
The current view in practice, science and policy is that measures aimed at controlling traffic
demand and measures aimed at optimizing the utilization of the available road capacity
are not sufficient for dealing with increasing traffic congestion problems. Extra road
capacity by providing new transport infrastructure is also needed.
A road project begins with evaluating the transportation system, taking into account
country-wide priorities, and strategic plans for the country’s transportation system. Historic
data on road and bridge conditions, traffic volumes and crash statistics are used by
transportation planners, engineers, environmentalists, landscape architects, soil scientists
and others to identify trends that determine what and how to build. Planning process of
new or modified infrastructure within a road system can roughly be divided into three
stages: the explorative study stage, the project study stage, and the implementation stage.
Ideally these stages follow each other in a smooth process. Yet, it is not uncommon that
new information in later phases requires adjustments to the earlier planning stages. A
typical example is relying on traffic counting information in the early
stages of planning. Omitting quality accurate and reliable traffic loading data from
WIM systems can feed incorrect inputs to the entire planning process.
6
Figure 6: Expected maximum traffic loading

100
90 event - 2005 kNm
80 1 day - 3450 kNm
70 1 week - 3867 kNm
60 1 month - 4172 kNm
50
1 year - 4690 kNm
40
5 years - 5070 kNm
30
10 years - 5219 kNm
20
10 25 years - 5389 kNm
0 50 years - 5520 kNm

75 years - 5594 kNm
100 years - 5646 kNm
Total moment of two vehicles [kNm]
SiWIM® system, a flexible and entirely portable tool for measuring the real traffic loading,
is an ideal solution for collecting traffic data at multiple locations over time, to cover the
area of influence of the investment. Loading (and overloading) varies considerably from
one measured site to another and from one road section to the next, hence accurate
measurement of the traffic loads, not just the volume of the traffic, is a must
Many valid pavement loading specifications multiply the average vehicle loading factors
with the traffic volume data from traffic counters. These factors are often obsolete and
do not account for modern vehicles, their loading and overloading, nor do they
follow local trends, like constant overloading of certain type of vehicles, proximity
of quarries and similar. Field analyses show that differences between the average
vehicle loading factors and the measured vehicle loading factors on certain road section
are significant and not equal between different measurement sites.
Maintenance (of roads and bridges)
Management of the road network requires a variety of information to support maintenance

decisions. The reliable traffic loading data collected by SiWIM® system supports the
decisions related to infrastructure maintenance. Consequently, the works on the road
network can be reduced and optimized, which results in cutting maintenance costs, in less
time spent for repairs and reconstructions, and in lesser impact on the environment.
Figure 7: Road blocks
7
The general term “construction” encompasses the activities and issues relevant to the
process of road construction and maintenance, including the design, contracting,
implementation, supervision, and maintenance of roads and associated structures, such as
bridges, interchanges, tunnels, access ramps and others.
Proper road maintenance contributes to reliable transport at minimum costs, as

there is a direct link between road condition and vehicle operating costs. An improperly
maintained road can also represent an increased safety hazard to the user, leading to more
accidents, with their associated human and property costs. Most maintenance works are
planned in advance, either as routine, periodical or even special works. With the help of
SiWIM® data, intervals and extent of maintenance works can be optimized considerably.
Environmental issues are more and more considered in the planning, design and
implementation of road maintenance tasks. While the impact of a maintenance project may
seem minute because of its localized nature, the cumulative impact throughout the road
network is noticeable. The frequency of road maintenance operations can facilitate the
implementation of standard good practices. By using SiWIM® system, maintenance works
can concentrate on sections most affected by heavy traffic, while maintenance works
scheduled for other sections can be relaxed.
For efficient road network management, specific information is required at different levels
of the decision-making process (planning, implementation, operation). The data collected
by SiWIM® system supports this entire process. With its ability to provide accurate axle
loading information per day and, by comparing this result with initial calculation based
on data from traffic counters, calculating life span of the observed road section, together
with bridge related data, SiWIM® system offers unparalleled advantage over any
other WIM system.
Bridge assessment
Bridge failures can threat lives and are thus unacceptable. Optimized assessment of
existing bridges, particularly if they are old, deteriorated and suffering from reduced
carrying capacity, requires as accurate inputs as possible. An effective option is to apply
realistic, site-specific traffic loads and to calibrate the analytical model of the bridge
according to the measured bridge response. SiWIM® system was designed to provide such
information.
8
Figure 8: Bridge deterioration
Bridges are critical components of any road or rail transportation system. It is therefore
paramount that they are kept in operation as long as possible without disturbances, such
as closures for repairs.
Optimal planning of rehabilitation measures is often difficult as bridges deteriorate while

their loading is increasing over time. Unlike pavement failures, which mainly reduce driving
comfort, bridge failures are not acceptable as they can cost lives and, consequently, loss
of confidence in the transportation infrastructure. At the same time, bridge managers face
constant lack of funds for rehabilitation. Therefore, knowing the true bridge safety is
highly desirable, if not absolutely necessary.
Bridge condition is affected by its deterioration over time and its structural safety.
Deteriorated bridges not only look bad, they have reduced capacity that still needs to carry
the dead load (own load of the structure, which can increase over time, for example, due
to an extra asphalt course), the environmental loads due to temperature, wind, snow or
earthquake, and the traffic loads. If the total loading, corrected with safety factors,
exceeds the capacity, the structure cannot be considered safe and must be either
reinforced, posted (closed for the rest vehicles) or replaced.
SiWIM® is an extremely efficient tool to optimize structural safety analyses and to reduce
number of bridges that need to be rehabilitated. This not only saves money to the bridge
owners and tax payers, but also mitigates road closures and, consequently, improves
mobility and quality of life and has positive effects on safety of road users and workers and
on the environment.
SiWIM® provides two types of essential information to improve bridge safety analyses.
Firstly, it collects traffic data and secondly, it identifies the true behaviour of bridges
(through influence lines and load distributions), a crucial parameter to convert properly
traffic loads into load effects (axle loads into moments and shear forces). To cater for the
whole life-time of bridges, which is typically 75 or 100 years, the bridge design codes
overestimate the traffic loading. In real life, the traffic loading is constantly increasing, and
the structure itself is deteriorating. Thus, a 100-year old bridge will likely not pass a safety
assessment based on a current loading standard. To overcome this, SiWIM® collects
information about true traffic and converts it into the expected maximum load effects
9
(figure below). These are typically much lower than the design. A simulation method for
shorter bridges is provided with the SiWIM®, but any other analytical method benefits from
the collected axle loads.
Figure 9: Expected maximum traffic loading
A unique feature of SiWIM® is the measurement of the dynamic amplification of

loads due to each vehicle crossing the bridge (Dynamic Amplification Factor). This
is used to calculate the characteristic dynamic loading which is typically considerably lower
than prescribed in the design codes.
The true load effects on practically all bridges, especially the old ones, are much lower than
in theory, because bridges behave in less conservative ways than assumed for the design
purposes. If these effects are not measured and employed in the analysis, the selected
rehabilitation measures will likely be excessive and too costly. SiWIM® directly
calculates and statistically evaluates influence lines and load distribution factors
needed to calibrate the structural models. This procedure is known as soft load
testing - SLT.
A further unique SiWIM® feature is that it can correlate the measured strains with
the traffic loading that induced those strains. This can be used to calibrate the finite
element model of a structure and to extend the effects of traffic loading on elements that
are not instrumented for measurements or in fatigue assessments of steel bridges.
On old and obsolete bridges, too, all or some of these SiWIM® features enhance structural
assessment and regularly demonstrate sufficient structural safety without compromising
the safety levels set by the codes.
Pre-selection for enforcement
SiWIM® has some crucial advantages in comparison to R-WIM systems:

• Suitable for temporary installations,
• Mobile:
o Permanent locations are sooner or later known to truck drivers and they tend
to avoid them,
o One system can cover a much wider part of road network – in other words
with the same investment we can reach a higher effect
o Permanent WIM stations are not necessary for enforcement to be effective
– an R-WIM system enables to catch every offender but just on that one
permanent location where it is installed and without offenders that manage
10
to avoid this location / on the other hand SiWIM® gives truck drivers the
consciousness that they could be weight anywhere
• Not visible – therefore truck drivers cannot notice their location
The significant growth in domestic and international commerce has resulted in growing
number of overloaded vehicles that are damaging the infrastructure and are harming the
fair competition in freight transport. Challenge arises for the ability of industry to move
freight economically without using larger and heavier loads. The challenge of limited
enforcement resources for monitoring vehicle size and weight compliance in the interest of
infrastructure preservation can be solved with the use of the SiWIM® system for
preselection.
Figure 10: Preselection of overloaded vehicles
Steady growth in commerce, competition in the hauling sector and tense economic
situation in most countries inevitably result in an ever-increasing number of freight
vehicle operators trying to exceed the legal load limits. This trend challenges limited
enforcement resources tasked with monitoring vehicle size and weight compliance in the
interest of a) fair competition between transport service providers, b) maintaining
Acceptable traffic safety level for the users and c) infrastructure preservation.
Several procedures and technologies for enforcing commercial vehicle size and weight laws
are available, but in most cases fixed roadside weighing facilities alone cannot provide
effective overload enforcement.
In most countries, fining of overloaded vehicles is still only possible as an result of static
weighing, on permanent weighing stations or with portable weighing setups, and with the
assistance of the police. As the static weighing process is very slow, weighing all vehicles
and intercepting most offenders on heavy traffic roads is not feasible as it would cause
tremendous queues. Therefore, to be efficient, static weighing stations must be coupled
with a high-speed WIM preselection device that provides a good indication of potentially
overloaded vehicles that should be checked statically. Otherwise, the truck drivers find a
way to escape weighing and only a relatively small number of offenders caught.
11
Figure 11: Additional static weighing of preselected overloaded vehicles
SiWIM® system is an efficient preselection tool to scan vehicle axle loadings before sending
the likely offenders to the static weighing or low-speed WIM stations. Its advantage over
the pavement WIM systems is that it is suitable for temporary installations,
particularly if static weighing campaign is also of a temporary nature. SiWIM®
identifies the potentially violating vehicle and sends weighing results to the enforcement
unit, together with the photo of the vehicle and its license plate (if an appropriate camera
is installed).
The potential benefits of SiWIM® based vehicle size and weight enforcement extend beyond
infrastructure preservation they include improved delivery of enforcement services by
enhancing effectiveness and efficiency, by improved commercial vehicle productivity (i.e.,
supply chain velocity) by reducing the total number of vehicles required to stop for
enforcement purposes, by fewer emissions by reducing unnecessary deceleration, idling
and acceleration of compliant vehicles, by higher commercial and general motor vehicle
safety levels by controlling the operation of non- permitted, non-compliant (i.e.,
overweight or oversize) vehicles, by better data quantity and quality to support pavement
design, bridge/structural design, traffic engineering and transportation planning efforts, as
well as ongoing performance monitoring and evaluation of vehicle size and weight
enforcement programs.
Pre-screening vehicles for overweight enforcement is not the only way to use SiWIM®
system for preselection. It can be used on country borders to identify loaded
vehicles in the traffic flow for border inspection by both border and customs
officers. Weight of the vehicle is compared with data stored in the database, subtracting
weight of the empty vehicle. Empty vehicles are not inspected and pass the border without
stopping. As a by-product of this screening, tracking of the vehicle movement and
consistency of its weight during passage through the country can be performed
if all borders are equipped with such a system. Another potentially efficient application of
SIWIM® is prescreening of vehicle weights for advanced tolling that is not based only on
km driven but also on the damage that the vehicles causes to infrastructure that is using.
12
Figure 12: Shows exact times, when additional control should be set
Real-time preselection for enforcement is not the only possible use of SiWIM® system, it
can also be used for scheduling time and location of mobile enforcement missions,
screening for undeclared special transports and speeding up border procedures. The
system mobility allows multiple locations to be covered in a short time.
Police and other enforcement units can benefit from the use of SiWIM® system not only as
a support for preselection, i.e. for identification of potentially overloaded trucks in the
traffic flow to be diverted from the traffic flow and statically weighed. System can also
indicate when and where the overloaded vehicles appear or are to be expected.
When SiWIM® systems are installed on several parallel roads at the same time,
the traffic pattern of vehicles avoiding a static weighing will indicate where and
when the additional control should be set on those roads.
As a mobile system, SiWIM® is capable to perform measurements at various locations and

to provide density diagrams and average daily traffic. A day-by-day analysis can highlight
overloaded vehicles, most presented vehicle classes. It also indicates when and how often
police patrols should be present on location. Suggested timetable of supervision of
overloaded vehicles can be generated with just a few clicks. With long term
measurement, these patterns become even more obvious.
Undeclared special transports, too, can be detected with the SiWIM® system and
alarm can be sent to the enforcement unit to check the vehicle on route.
Road damage remediation
Road pavements are structures with limited lifetime. They are designed to withstand a
specific number of equivalent single axle loads (ESALs). Increased heavy traffic due to the
construction works or similar activities in their vicinity can significantly shorten their
expected lifetime. Applying a methodology for the calculation of road damage remediation
fees, based on the SiWIM® system data, costs for road repair can be shared between all
parties involved.
13
Figure 13: Roads damage remediation calculation
ESAL %
€
15%
Quarry Damage
85% Other remediation
The construction of major roads, energy infrastructure facilities or large buildings

usually involve the movement of considerable quantities of material from one
location to another. This transport mainly takes place by road, which means
additional traffic loads on the main and regional roads, usually within a specified,
short period of time. This extra traffic, often consisting of overloaded vehicles, causes
additional damage and accelerated deterioration of these roads, which are often not
designed for it. Maintenance and rehabilitation costs to repair the damage can be very high
and are normally not accounted for in the planning documents.
Pavements are structures with finite lives. They are designed to withstand a specific traffic
loading often described with number of Equivalent Single Axle Loads - ESALs in a certain
time period. Consequently, the traffic loading consumption of design life, and
increased road infrastructure costs associated with it, increase rapidly where significant
volumes of extra heavy truck traffic is involved. If a road section was not designed for
heavy axle loads, as many rural roads are not, it can deteriorate completely in a matter of
months or even weeks.
A possible solution to the problem is sharing of rehabilitation costs among all parties; owner
of the road, investor of the construction project and/or contractors of these works. For this
purpose, a methodology was developed to determine the necessary corrective measures
on the affected roads, where the increased volume of truck traffic due to additional
construction works is calculated against the normal volume of the trucks on a measured
road section. Then, construction cost per lane per kilometre and design life of the road is
used together with the real traffic data measured before and during the construction works
with the SiWIM® system. It is important to compare not only traffic volume but also traffic
loads.
Notwithstanding the effects of natural aging, pavements have a limited lifetime in terms of
the passage of heavy axle loads, i.e., each passage uses up a portion of the pavement life.
The consumption of pavement life constitutes an economic cost which occurs whenever a
portion of the remaining useful life of a pavement is consumed.
SiWIM® system provides exact information about each truck passage, used for
construction, calculating ESAL value (axle loading) for legally loaded part of the vehicle
and for all overloaded vehicles, which are quite common around construction sites. These
summarized data are compared to normal traffic load on the measured road section,
providing direct calculation of road damage remediation fees according to the
used methodology.
14
Exceptional (special) transports
To avoid conservative approach calculating bridge safety factors, SiWIM® bridge weigh-in-
motion system is used as a perfect tool to create calibrated structural load model, used to
calculate instantly the safety level under any traffic loading, including the special
transports. By assessing all bridges on route only once, data can be used for route
assessment on any type of special transport repeatedly.
Figure 14: Special transport
Commercial and other vehicles that exceed regulations on weight (per axle, gross weight)
and dimensions (width, length and height) are considered special transports. These include
also loaded or empty vehicles which weights and dimensions are within the general
permissible limits but exceed any of the specific limitations indicated by traffic signs on a
road section.
Such special transports require a permit, which defines procedures and conditions of the
journey and the fee charged for the transport. When an application is received, the
authority has to perform a route survey. If the special transport is over the legal load
(typically 40 to 60 tons gross weight) all bridges must be reassessed with regards to their
structural safety under the specified higher loading. If necessary, special conditions, such
as no other traffic on the bridge at the time of crossing or reduced speed limit during
crossing of a critical bridge, may be imposed.
Typical approach to perform a route survey is to identify all bridges along the
proposed route (typically from a bridge database or a Bridge Management System) and
to calculate their structural safety, taking into account a) available information on the
structures (their load bearing capacity, degree of deterioration), and b) axle loads and
gross vehicle weight of the particular special vehicle. When applying the standard analytical
methods based on the design codes, particularly the older and deteriorated bridges often
fail to pass the assessment. The main reason is that the design methods for
calculating bridge safety tend to be too conservative as a) they do not take into
account reserves in capacity and in structural behaviour that structures usually exhibit,
and b) they cover the entire lifetime of the structure, not individual events, such as special
transports. Thus, the applied levels of safety tend to be too high for a well-defined special
transport.
15
Figure 15: Load modelling
As the SiWIM® system measures actual behaviour of the bridge under the traffic
load (influence lines and load distribution over the structural members), the bridge
structural models can be fi ne-tuned to account for their reserves in capacity and
actual load effects (on older bridges in particular, bending moments can be considerably
lower than assumed in the theoretical bridge models). This method is known as SLT – soft
load testing of bridges. A specific benefit of SLT with a SiWIM® system is that once
the structural model is optimized with the true influence lines and load
distribution factors, it can be reused to calculate instantly their structural safety
under any traffic loading, including and especially under the special transports.
Apart from its monitoring part, SiWIM® system can also detect special transports as
they pass the instrumented location. They are identified by combining a specific vehicle
classification scheme with a license plate recognition (ANPR) camera. A positive match of
a special transport is compared against the database of all approvals, to identify vehicles
without the permits. A negative match is either forwarded to the enforcement team or
stored for later processing. More and more countries are recognizing that special transports
without permits are a serious problem.
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Transportation of dangerous goods
Figure 16: Transportation of dangerous goods
Vehicles carrying dangerous goods are not always properly marked, which, in an event of
an accident, may be harmful to people, property or the environment. With
its pre-screening ability, the SiWIM® system contributes to safety on the roads.
Dangerous goods are solids, liquids or gases potentially harmful to people, other living
organisms, property or the environment. Mitigating the risks associated with hazardous
materials may require the application of safety precautions during their transport, use,
storage and disposal.
The most widely applied regulatory scheme is that for the transportation of dangerous
goods. Each transport should be clearly marked with a 4-digit UN number and ADR plaque
specifying substances transported.
In reality, vehicles carrying dangerous goods are not always properly marked, they might
be empty, but still use markings for dangerous goods, or might be fully loaded (or even
overloaded), but not showing exact substance in transportation.
To avoid guessing, SiWIM® system can be used in combination with overview camera
to analyse dangerous goods transports during a period of time, providing information
about the number of vehicles, their types, percentage of vehicles equipped with empty
markings, the ratio between loaded and empty vehicles, type of substances carried, share
of domestic/foreign vehicles and others. Traffic pattern can be established and
security/environmental issues can be raised regarding specific routes.
The system, when installed permanently, can be used as a prevention tool, to pinpoint
problematic vehicles carrying dangerous goods, to increase safety on the roads
17
3 Benefits for the user
A wide and comprehensive use of SiWIM® could bring considerable benefits to the user.
Benefits originate from the areas of use described in the previous chapters and in the end
they are translated into:
• Roads/bridges preservation (longer lifetime because of real-traffic-load based
design and due to prevention of overloaded vehicles),
• Money savings for road owners (because of longer lifetime of roads/bridge and
their optimised maintenance),
• Money savings for vehicle owners (lower operational costs of vehicles on better
roads),
• Minimised collective/indirect cost of road closures (minimised cost of lost
men-hours and idle run of cars during road blocks waiting),
• Safety on roads and especial important on bridges,
• Mobility (due to optimized maintenance and better roads/bridges)
• Comfort of driving (because of better roads/bridges),
• Ecology (avoid unnecessary or premature maintenance therefor loss of resources),
• Positive effect on the economy (a good and reliable road network enables for
easier, faster and cheaper transport of goods, services, information, knowledge and
people which in turn enables a more effective use of human and non-human
resources and therefore increase in economic growth).
We will illustrate some expected benefits for the users of SiWIM® through some
experiences from Slovenia and other countries that have been using SiWIM® for a
long period of time and have incorporated SiWIM® and derived data into the texture of
road/bridge management and maintenance in a comprehensive way therefore exploiting
the advantages that SiWIM® brings.
Technical specifications for design of public roads
SiWIM® measurements have been used to change the prescribed nominal axle load (NAL)
in the Technical specifications for design of public roads.
In Slovenia, real traffic loads have been measured using SiWIM® since the year 2000. With
the help of these measurements, it was observed that the actual axle loads occurring in
traffic are significantly higher than the nominal axle loads (NAL) found in the Technical
specifications for public roads, which are used to design the roads. This effectively means
that the roads are often under-dimensioned and the road surface is damaged and in need
of maintenance work sooner than designed.
Based on the data gathered with SiWIM®, the Slovenian Infrastructure Agency
decided in 2009 to increase the NAL in the Technical specifications for public roads from
82 kN to 100 kN.
Since 2009, Sweden and Croatia also used SiWIM® measurements to change the standards
in road design.
The inclusion of real axle loads in the Technical specifications for public roads has significant
effect on the costs related to the infrastructure maintenance. Using appropriate NAL for
road design, is essential to have properly designed roads. While the initial cost for
properly designed road is slightly higher, the long-term cost that includes
maintenance is drastically lower (figure below).
18
Figure 17: Costs & Benefits – properly vs. under-dimensioned road
*Cost estimates above are for the case of Slovenia.
Real traffic load data for road design
The figure above (cost comparison of properly and under-dimensioned road) is

representative also for the case of using real traffic loads. In this case the result is even
better in terms of longer lifetime of the road and huge saving.
Correction of equivalent single axle loads in the Technical specifications for road design is
an important step toward properly design roads. However, where possible it is even better
to use real traffic load data obtained with SiWIM® for the specific road section in question.
Each singular road has its own specific traffic flow. Therefore, measuring the real
traffic load for the road in question is an additional step toward a road design that is
proper for this road and its specific traffic flow.
19
The Slovenian example shows that the true traffic loading has increased in
comparison to the expected traffic loading by 15% from 2017 to 2020.
In 2 decades of SiWIM® measurements in Slovenia the use of real traffic loading has proven
its effectiveness. Accordingly, road owners began to require from road design
bureaus to perform the designing based on SiWIM® measurements (as
requirement in procurement tenders).
R-WIM system permanently installed in few locations cannot help in this (if not for that
few locations where installed).
Maintenance of road and bridges
The figure below shows us a rather extreme but true example of under-dimensioned road.
The road was designed for 65,4 ESAL/day but with SiWIM® measurements we found out
that the actual traffic load was 497,9 ESAL/day. This in turns cased the lifetime of the road
to decrease from the expected 20 years to only approx. 2,5 years.
This is a rather extreme case but the average remaining lifetime of roads in Slovenian in
2017-2020 was still only 13,9 years instead of the planned 20 years. This gives us a good
understanding of the importance of this phenomenon for the maintenance planning.
Figure 18: Example of shortened life-time from 20 to 2,5 years (green colour)
The figure above on one hand is another perspective or the source of the problem of
enormously higher costs of under-dimensioned roads shown it the previous
chapters. From the other hand it shows us how important is to have true traffic load
data for maintenance planning. Knowing the true traffic load and the remaining lifetime
of the road allows us to establish priorities on road maintenance (which road needs
maintenance when) and to plan the needed financing.
Bridges has similar but reversed situation – if roads usually deteriorate faster than planned,
bridges usually live longer. A proper bridge assessment is the key for proper
maintenance planning.
R-WIM system permanently installed in few locations cannot help in this and they do
not give any data about bridges.
20
Bridge assessment - case
Bridges are critical points of road infrastructure as a collapse is simply unacceptable

because of safety. Form the other hand they are associated with significant maintenance
costs.
SiWIM® can be used as a cost-effective tool to assess the current state of bridges and their
lifetime.
Due to high factors of safety associated with bridge design, the life span of a bridge is often
longer than initially calculated. SiWIM® measure some crucial parameters (influence line,
load distribution, DAF etc.) that are used to make a more precise or customised bridge
assessment avoiding generalisation and high safety factors. Using SiWIM® a bridge that
would fail to pass a classical bridge inspection can prove to be safe or vice versa we could
discover faulty bridges that would pass unnoticed.
In 2004 in a first structural safety inspection identified 154 deficient bridges on the
Slovenian road network. These bridges were additionally analysed with the help of data
gathered by SiWIM®. It was discovered that 141 of 154 bridges which were initially deemed
deficient were in reality safe for the existing traffic conditions.
Replacement/reparation cost of all deficient bridges was calculated to be approx. 100 MIO
€. Due to assessment optimised with SiWIM® data, the cost was reduced to 9 MIO €
thus saving 91 MIO € of direct costs plus enormous indirect costs of reduced
mobility.
21
Figure 19: Load distribution and Influence line – parameters for accurate bridge
assessment
SiWIM® integration in the national roads control center
Today SiWIM® in Slovenia is an integral part the roads/bridges management system. It is

incorporated into the DARS control center as one of the crucial components.
22
Figure 20: DARS roads control centre
Cestel personnel located in the DARS control centre operates with SiWIM® systems
installed on the road network of Slovenia. There are 10 SiWIM® systems installed, the
majority of them with changing location during the year. This way we have a good
overview on the road network in regard to heavy vehicles.
The operator has access to the national data base of permits for exceptional transports. If
an overloaded exceptional transport or an exceptional transport without or not in-line with
the permit is detected, the operator notifies the police which in turns stops the vehicle,
control it and fine it if necessary. As SiWIM® is integrated in a wide net of monitoring vide-
cameras, the operator can easily truck the movement of vehicles and guide the police
patrol. Similarly, it happens with ordinary vehicles that are overloaded.
R-WIM system permanently installed on few locations are less efficient as they cover
smaller portion of road network and drivers know their location.
Pre-selection for enforcement - case
The SiWIM® operator in the DARS control represent a firs and constant line of pre-selection
of overloaded vehicle. In addition police weighing patrols can access to SiWIM® data on-
line and in real time via smart phone.
23
Figure 21: Smart-phone access to SiWIM®
This offers an on-field access for police patrols to be more effective in finding
overloaded vehicles. Additionally, they can discover the time patterns of overloaded
vehicles on a specific road which allows to adapt their work time to the most critical
hours and to avoid leaving time-windows when offenders can pass unnoticed.
Figure 22: Time-pattern of vehicles
Violation reduction
As shown above SiWIM® can drastically improve the effectiveness of overloaded vehicles
control and enforcement.
In 2 decades of SiWIM® use in Slovenia the share of overloaded vehicles has fallen
from 20% to 10% (approx.). We showed that an axle overload for only 20% has
100% higher destructive effect on the road. Therefore a decrease of 10% in the
share of overload vehicles represent a huge improvement in roads preservation
and represents huge savings.
R-WIM system permanently installed on few locations are less efficient as they cover
smaller portion of road network and drivers know their location.
24
Road damage remediation - case
Road damage remediation methodology could be applied on additional traffic load related
to (usually temporary) traffic caused by big construction sites (roads, railways, power
plants, infrastructure objects, residential areas, logistic centres, shopping centres etc.),
but also asphalt production, queries, mines, timber etc.
Such traffic is usually associated with heavily loaded and often with overloaded vehicles.
From the other side it usually occurs on roads that were not designed for such traffic load.
Therefore, it could cause severe damage and drastic lifetime reduction even in case where
it is of temporary nature.
SiWIM® offers the possibility to measure the true traffic load on a specific road (section)
and to distinguish between the ordinary and additional traffic load. These date are than
used in accordance with a remediation calculation methodology that must be accepted in
the national legislation.
For example, in Slovenia in the period 2017-2020 the damage caused by overloaded
vehicles amounts for 200 MIO € per year. Distributing this amount to the companies
that has caused it, would allow firstly for more reasonable use of roads and secondly for
the road owners to collect the money needed for road maintenance.
4 Proposed strategy of SiWIM® use
Cestel suggests the users of SiWIM® the following strategy:

• Use automatic traffic counters’ (ATC) data which brings a wide and rough view of
the traffic situation on the road network in combination with on-field observations
(e.g., information on which roads are being deteriorated fast) to determine a first
rough plan and priorities on where (which bridges and roads / roads sections)
additional in-dept traffic/bridge monitoring and analysis is needed.
• Use SiWIM® to perform the in-dept traffic/bridge monitoring and analysis on
selected bridges and roads / roads sections.
• Use SiWIM® data to prepare a more accurate and grounded plan for WIM
measurements that will be based on true traffic loads and bridge assessments.
Comparison between B-WIM and R-WIM
The peculiarity and advantage of SiWIM® (B-WIM) system in comparison to Road WIM
(hereinafter R-WIM) systems is the possibility to move the system from one bridge to
another in short time and with low costs. Thus, it is possible to perform measurements on
a large number of bridges (therefore on a large number of roads or road sections) with one
or few systems. In turn this means that with the same investment the road owner could
get measurements and data about a much larger portion of road network in comparison
with R-WIM. On the other hand, SiWIM® could be used also for permanent measurements.
Comparison between B-WIM and ATC
The system is an ideal supplement to the current ATC (automatic traffic counters)
measurements that are being caried out today. The ATC gives traffic data at low cost. The
ATC measures the number of axles and vehicles by classes. Traffic loads can only be
estimated by multiplying the number of axles/vehicles with theoretical and predetermined
factors of weight. The SiWIM® in addition gives data about weight (gross weight and axle
weight) for every vehicle and also data needed for bridge assessment. Therefore, the ATC
25
is suitable to get a very rough view of the traffic on a large scale. The SiWIM® ideally
complements the ATC data by measuring true traffic loads (measured with ESAL). True
traffic loads are a crucial data for road/bridge design and management. SiWIM®
additionally offers also other data and functionalities – bridge assessment, pre-selection
for enforcement, transportation of dangerous goods control, exceptional transport control
and route verification etc.
5 Conclusion
SiWIM® can bring vast benefits to its users. The majority of these benefits are specific
only for SiWIM® and not for R-WIM. These benefits translate into:
• Roads/bridges preservation (longer lifetime because of real-traffic-load based
design and due to prevention of overloaded vehicles),
• Money savings for road owners (because of longer lifetime of roads/bridge and
their optimised maintenance),
• Money savings for vehicle owners (lower operational costs of vehicles on better
roads),
• Minimised collective/indirect cost of road closures (minimised cost of lost
men-hours and idle run of cars during road blocks waiting),
• Safety on roads and especial important on bridges,
• Mobility (due to optimized maintenance and better roads/bridges)
• Comfort of driving (because of better roads/bridges),
• Ecology (avoid unnecessary or premature maintenance therefor loss of resources),
Positive effect on the economy (a good and reliable road network enables for easier,
faster and cheaper transport of goods, services, information, knowledge and people which
in turn enables a more effective use of human and non-human resources and therefore
increase in economic growth).
This document was prepared by Cestel d.o.o.
26

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CESTEL d.o.o. | Špruha 32 | SI - 1236 Trzin | [email protected] | +386 1 568 17 19 | www.cestel.

Benefits of using the SiWIM® system

BENEFITS USING THE SiWIM SYSTEM

BENEFITS USING THE SiWIM SYSTEM

BENEFITS USING THE SiWIM SYSTEM

Figure 1: Typical Bridge Weigh-in-Motion instrumentation

Figure 2: SiWIM® electronics

Accuracy of SiWIM® measurements

parentheses is the confidence interval δ at the confidence level ϖ of approximately 95 %

Comparison between static and dynamic measurements

Figure 3: Dynamic of a driving vehicle: body bounce and axle hop

Influence of traffic on pavement

This gives the following fa factors for different types of axles:

Figure 4: Relation between weight(tons) and traffic load (ESAL’s)

2 SiWIM® areas of use

Planning & Design (of roads and bridges)

Building traffic infrastructure is a time-consuming, expensive and usually irreversible

Road infrastructure is a precondition for a well-functioning transport system. Its planning,

Figure 5: Road planning and design

Figure 6: Expected maximum traffic loading

0 50 years - 5520 kNm

Maintenance (of roads and bridges)

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

Figure 7: Road blocks

Proper road maintenance contributes to reliable transport at minimum costs, as

Figure 8: Bridge deterioration

Optimal planning of rehabilitation measures is often difficult as bridges deteriorate while

Figure 9: Expected maximum traffic loading

A unique feature of SiWIM® is the measurement of the dynamic amplification of

Pre-selection for enforcement

SiWIM® has some crucial advantages in comparison to R-WIM systems:

Figure 10: Preselection of overloaded vehicles

Figure 11: Additional static weighing of preselected overloaded vehicles

As a mobile system, SiWIM® is capable to perform measurements at various locations and

Road damage remediation

Figure 13: Roads damage remediation calculation

The construction of major roads, energy infrastructure facilities or large buildings

Exceptional (special) transports

Figure 14: Special transport

Figure 15: Load modelling

Transportation of dangerous goods

Figure 16: Transportation of dangerous goods

3 Benefits for the user

Technical specifications for design of public roads

Figure 17: Costs & Benefits – properly vs. under-dimensioned road

*Cost estimates above are for the case of Slovenia.

Real traffic load data for road design

The figure above (cost comparison of properly and under-dimensioned road) is

Maintenance of road and bridges

Bridge assessment - case

Bridges are critical points of road infrastructure as a collapse is simply unacceptable

SiWIM® integration in the national roads control center

Today SiWIM® in Slovenia is an integral part the roads/bridges management system. It is

Figure 20: DARS roads control centre

Pre-selection for enforcement - case

Figure 21: Smart-phone access to SiWIM®

Figure 22: Time-pattern of vehicles

Road damage remediation - case

4 Proposed strategy of SiWIM® use

Cestel suggests the users of SiWIM® the following strategy: