The Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) is responsible for control of heavy vehicles with the objective to identify factors affecting road safety and factors affecting competition in the transport industry. Examples are driving with excess weight, breach of drive/rest regulations or driving with material that is not in proper working condition. Norwegian Truck Owners Association (NLF) wants to establish a new system that more selectively pick out transporters who speculate in breaking existing laws and rules. Because the current controll system is built around manually operated controll stations, the chances of being controlled are small. At the same time transporters engaged within local distribution in the construction industry experience to be halted several times during the same day. This represents both a time and environmental cost.
Use of ITS solutions make it possible to establish new services allowing for more efficient and cost-effective vehicle controls. NonStop shall specify and develop a system for selective examination of control candidates. The final system shall be designed so that the selection of candidates for controll is done without the need to stop every vehicle. In addition, the system shall contain a data registry which include stored information about previous controlls. NonStop will develop and demonstrate a system for how to route vehicles to be controlled out of the traffic stream.
NonStop shall develop and select an evaluation method. This will be used to evaluate the control system both in terms of technical quality and robustness, utility value for the transporter and control authority, and user acceptance by the operator, transporter and driver.
What is the biggest challenge in the research project?
The key research challenges of the project is to evaluate the impact of adopting a targeted system for selecting vehicles for inspection. The project will focus on the effects of transport and executive control authority. Second, research contributions in the early stages of the process ensuring optimal design of the system with respect to collecting data and information that is requested in connection with planning and investment in infrastructure.
The research challenges can be summarized by the following questions:
- How can automatic control of vehicles be established to provide the most efficiency gains for the NPRA control environment and for the transporters?
- What is the impact of adopting a targeted system for selecting vehicles for inspection?
Who needs the results and who will be the first user of the project results?
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Innovation |
Partner and target group |
Value Creation Potential |
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Automatic vehicle control |
Norwegian Public Roads Administration |
- Improved efficiency of resources used in inspections - More targeted inspections - Environmental benefits through fewer unnecessary stops, especially for heavy vehicles - Inspect and stop more vehicles that are a hazard to road safety |
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Transporters |
- No stop for vehicles in good working condition improves the efficiency - especially for commercial transport - Educational effects will provide more serious transporters and a better competitive situation - Possible lower insurance rate by meeting the regulations |
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Insurance industry |
- Fewer injuries, fatalities and less damage of equipment in traffic will lead to fewer and lower insurance payment |
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Technology companies |
- New business opportunities for automation and vehicle detection |
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New and improved statistics |
Norwegian Public Roads Administration |
- Provides better basis for optimal maintenance of the road network - Provides information about the load / ratio of filling / empty running, driving on various roads |
What name will future users give for what is developed in the project?
What is developed in NonStop may be termed a selectively targeted control system for NPRA's inspections. What lies at the foundation of it all is a decision support system. One can also call the result an automatic selection system for controlling candidates.
NonStop system sketch