Companies use personal (privately owned, operated, and accessible) weighbridges for a variety of reasons:
- Chain of Responsibility compliance
- Vehicle safety assurances (avoiding overloading a vehicle)
- Transportation efficiencies
- Accurate load readings for trade operations (payload optimisation)
But there are circumstances where a weighbridge might not be the most feasible option for a business at any given time, such as for start-up companies or companies that don’t require constant vehicle weighing but still require to remain compliant with legislative requirements.
These requirements and adherence to legislation are not unique to heavy goods vehicles and other truck configurations, however – they also apply to smaller commercial or personal vehicles that can be loaded or contain a payload: vans and couriers, cars with trailers, caravans, and towed vehicles such as boats. The use of a weighbridge – in this case, a publicly accessible weighbridge – is encouraged to ensure that these vehicles and vehicle configurations are not overloading the axles which, if they are, poses a safety risk to not only the driver but other road users, as well as to the roads themselves.
These public weighbridges are important parts of Australia’s infrastructure, and this was a project for Queensland’s.
The Customer’s Problem
Road infrastructure redesigns, improvements, and expansions often require the re-ordering of various important elements or the addition of new ones altogether. For main road infrastructure expansions, it was only a matter of time for the essential weighbridge element to be added to provide a publicly available method with which to improve driver and road user safety, to provide a method for heavy goods vehicle operators to weigh their loaded vehicles, as well as personal use vehicles such as those listed above.
The Diverseco Solution
The most viable solution to solve this problem was the design, installation, and provision of ongoing service of a fully in-ground weighbridge, paired with a remote display and weighing indicator.
The weighbridge allows for the capture of axle weight group readings and is suitable for virtually all vehicle types and configurations. When a vehicle positions its axles over the weighbridge, the axle weights are captured and sent to the weighing indicator located in the housing unit. For multiple axle groups, these weights are summed and collected.
These weight readings are visible to the drivers through the remote display (shown above) so that they know their vehicle load and ensure their vehicle safety and the safety of other road users.