| Abstract: | There are a limited number of available permanent WIM stations on the Texas highway network. As such, it is not feasible to generate accurate load spectra data required for pavement design, maintenance, and rehabilitations on every highway project. The net result is unoptimized designs or poor performing pavement structures with increased maintenance costs or high construction costs due to over-designing, with high overall life cycle costs. Deployment of portable WIM technology can offer a practical alternative or supplement as a cost-effective tool to rapidly measure and quantify traffic loading for any given highway site. In research project 0-6940, Develop Systems to Render Mechanistic-Empirical Traffic Data for Pavement Design, portable WIM technology has been successfully explored and demonstrated to accurately measure and collect site-specific traffic data from the intended highway location to supplement the permanent WIM station data for pavement designs and maintenance or rehabilitation. Therefore, statewide portable WIM system implementation was imperative in order to collect traffic data where permanent WIM stations are not available. In this implementation project, standardized procedures and guideline was developed to aid users understand more thoroughly the portable WIM system deployment and its operation for traffic data collection. The guideline includes portable WIM system components, site selection, installation, calibration, troubleshooting, and data analysis. Additionally, long-term portable WIM experimentation and demo-monitoring stations were established for demonstration, training, and certification at the TTI RELLIS campus and several in-service highways. The demo monitoring stations are operational and have been very instrumental in providing technical support for the ongoing statewide portable WIM traffic measurements and data collection efforts. |
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