Trials, funded by Highways England, have proved a success, with one in 12 of 100,000 tyres checked found to be underinflated and the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) identifying 5,000 overweight vehicles a month.
Now there are plans to roll the system out at strategic route locations across the country.
Highways England’s Commercial Vehicle Incident Prevention Team (CVIPT) backed a pilot of the WheelRight quartz senor system at Keele Services on the M6 before running year-long trials with John Lewis at Milton Keynes, AW Jenkinson Transport at Penrith, and the DVSA check site at Cuerden, on the M62.
The system comprises a set of high-intensity strobe lights, all-weather cameras and drive-over pressure instruments – all collecting huge amounts of data within seconds which allows for adjustments to be made to ensure that tyres are compliant with safety standards.
The data is used to provide results instantly and reports include: tyre pressures (pass or fail based on predetermined levels); tread depths (pass or fail based on specified levels); tyre temperatures (early identification of problem tyres or wheels); tyre condition (via a 360o photographic image of the tread); and Weigh in Motion data/axle weights.
CVIPT has been awarded this year’s Highways England Chairman’s Award and the Excellence in Safety Innovation Award for the technology.
“We are constantly looking for ways to ensure everyone who travels or works on our network gets home safe and well and CVIPT can be very proud of the work they are doing to help us achieve this,” said Highways England Chief Highway Engineer, Mike Wilson.
