A non-intrusive method for periodically recording the location and mass of an in-service heavyvehicle using on-board systems was devised, tested and improved. The method was deployed oncommercially operating buses in Victoria, Australia, for a period of 12 months. The purpose wasto gain insight into the typical ranges of in-service front and rear axle loads as they varie5 dthroughout the day, and to test the appropriateness of existing legal axle load limits relative toactual daily loading. While traditional infrastructure-based Weigh-In-Motion systems collectvehicle weight data for many different anonymous vehicles at a fixed point on a transportnetwork, for this purpose it was desirable to collect vehicle weight data for a small number ofspecific vehicles at any time during their travel, wherever they may have gone on the transportnetwork. This necessitated the use of a vehicle-based system. A bus is an interesting subject forthis method of data collection because its mass can change frequently during a journey and isoften unknown. On-board electronic weighing systems are designed to accurately indicate staticweight only under controlled conditions. Application of such a system to a commerciallyoperating vehicle at any time during travel presented measurement accuracy challenges that wereovercome during this project through the use of basic data processing algorithms to removeunwanted variations and spikes in the data. The end result was a procedure of sufficientaccuracy to enable a policy decision to be made about the regulation of bus mass in Victoria.
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