Evaluation of Vehicle Overload Control System on Major Road Corridors in Ethiopia
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Date
2016-12
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Publisher
AAU
Abstract
In order to protect the road assets from premature failure caused by overloading, axle load controls
in Ethiopia have been operational and undertaken by Ethiopian Roads Authority at the ten static
Control Stations and two mobile weighbridges. However, these stations have problem to cop up
with the current freight transportation and technological advancement. This research is then done
aiming to develop recommendations to improve efficiency and effectiveness of axle load
controlling system by evaluating the current locations of control stations and operational
management performance. A series of factors directly related to vehicle loading like heavy vehicle
traffic, axle load, distance to ports, and the existence of by-pass routes have been used in order to
do the evaluation for location. These factors have been rated based on criteria developed for the
study referring different studies and literatures. Evaluation for operational management used queue
analysis to study the checking time, congestion at the control station and losses in terms of times
and measurement accuracy at control systems. Availability of relevant facilities and existing
weighing system versus regulation have been done using questionnaire analysis and computation
of overloaded axle mass from the collected axle load data respectively. The result shows that the
selected stations are located on a place where high occurrence of overloading and their presence
have a significant importance in protecting roads adjacent to the station. Though, some stations
need extra weighbridge to make their role effective enough. And also some stations, mainly located
at town sections, need traffic congestions mitigation plan to minimize congestion outside the
station. On the other hand, the management operation evaluation analysis shows that the selected
stations have problem in data quality, staff composition, modernized equipment, and organised
operation. Finally, the research concludes with some recommendations for a well organised
management, operation and maintenance.
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Keywords
Location of Weighbridge, facility location determination, Vehicle overload control, Performance measurement, Queue analysis