'Overload' technology already here

A new "combination technology" which can detect the speed of vehicles and distinguish between cars and lorries, as well as recording their weight, the lane they are moving in, and their distance from the vehicle in front, is in use in the Republic - but only for statistical purposes.

The technology can even identify a vehicle by its number plate, photograph the vehicle and flash an image to a police checkpoint any distance up ahead.

A combination of weight-in-motion and automatic number-plate recognition technologies, the system can automatically notify police when a specific car is moving on the road network and track its progress, as well as determining whether a specific bus or lorry is overloaded.

Automatic number plate recognition has been used in the UK for security and anti-terrorist reasons for a number of years, but its combination with weight-in-motion is currently being pilot-tested by Wasp - the Weight and Safety Partnership - in a bid to identify overweight commercial vehicles, without having to stop each one.

While the technology is also in use here, its use is confined to purely statistical purposes - including independent verification by the National Roads Authority of the numbers of cars and lorries and even motorbikes crossing the West-Link bridge on the M50.

The British safety partnership Wasp includes the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (Vosa) which last March strongly criticised the standard of Irish commercial vehicles travelling in the United Kingdom. Overloaded lorries pose serious safety risks, through issues with brake failure manoeuvrability and stopping distances. They also damage road surfaces making them less safe for other road users.

Vosa claimed that up to 55 per cent of Irish-registered vehicles are in breach of safety regulations. The detection rates are considerably lower here. Stephen Hacker a spokesman for Vosa, said Ireland was ranked first among foreign states for breaches of regulations relating to drivers' hours; first for overloading; first for breaches of regulations relating to public service vehicles; and first for breaches of regulations relating to the use of trailers. On Monday The Irish Times viewed "live" information on the Waterford N25 and N9 routes which was being relayed to a computer in the offices of Electro Automation in Mulhuddart, Co Dublin. According to Electro Automation, the information was gathered for a client.

While the technology is adaptable for many purposes and can "plug in" to existing wire detection loops in the roads, for Garda detection and prosecution purposes the main element would be the linkage between weight-in-motion and automatic number plate recognition.

While detection rates for overloaded lorries are currently good, the benefit of the new technology is that detection rates should go up to almost 100 per cent.