A structural timber supplier in Perth recently received a vehicle infringement notice for unintentionally overloading one of their vehicles. This infringement drew their attention to the Chain of Responsibility legislation in Australia today.
The legislation requires that all parties involved with the transport of goods on Australian roads share responsibility of the load, whether a company’s General Manager or a transport company’s vehicle driver.
Further investigation by this supplier revealed that they were exposed to great risk of overloading the front axle group of their vehicles, even though their vehicles’ overall gross mass was within legal limits.
Consequently, it was essential that they sourced a permanent weighing solution to help them eliminate the risk of further infringement of Chain of Responsibility laws.
That’s when AccuWeigh were consulted. The team recommended a 4m long by 3m wide, steel, in-ground axle weigher which enabled the company to weigh individual axle groups and comply with Chain of Responsibility legislation. AccuWeigh also constructed the concrete pit foundation to house the steel deck axle weigher through its civil construction division, AccuCivil.
To ensure the weighing process was efficient and involved minimal downtime, AccuWeigh also provided an automated weighing system that only requires interaction with the vehicle driver via a Driver Control Station (DCS).
How the DCS works
As the vehicle driver enters the axle weigher with the first axle group, a traffic control light changes from green to red. Only when the first axle group weight is accurately and reliable captured does the light turn back to green to signal for the driver to move to the next axle group. Once the last axle group is weighed and captured, the driver then disembarks the vehicle and interacts with the DCS, entering information to identify his vehicle (that is, his registration number).
The DCS stores the entire details of this weighing transaction in a database and a printed docket is produced for the driver’s records. The database provides evidence of compliance and can be accessed using a USB port.
The AccuWeigh IT6000E weighing controller accurately and reliably captures axle group loads by taking up to 800 weight readings per second. When this is combined with purpose-written software, it can easily determine when the axle group is completely on the weighing surface. The software also totalises the axle groups to determine an overall vehicle gross mass.
While the concept of an automated weighing system might imply expense and deter further research on about the system; many automated weighing systems are off-the-shelf systems with a lot of automation already built-in to modern intelligent weighing controllers.
This system was specifically tailored to this customer. However, variations to this system may suit your needs, including network connectivity to the DCS for remote and real-time access to the database, and vehicle identification via unique iButton tags which removes driver error when identifying their vehicle to the system.
Learn more about AccuWeigh’s axle weighers at https://diverseco.com.au/weighing/truck-scales/axle-weighers-truck-axle-scales/ and be assured that we can provide all manner of accessories and systems to improve your site’s productivity and profitability.
