Adaptive truck metering control for electronic commercial vehicle screening systems

This paper presents an adaptive truck metering control algorithm to enhance the electronic screening (e-screening) operation at truck weigh stations. This algorithm uses a feedback control mechanism to control the level of truck vehicles entering the weigh station. Under overflowing truck conditions, the proposed algorithm attempts to prevent the queue spillback problem by allowing more trucks to bypass the weigh station. Alternatively, the algorithm leads the e-screening system to adopt a stricter bypass condition to preclude overweight trucks from being bypassed due to the Weigh-In-Motion measurement error. The proposed control concept is demonstrated and evaluated in a simulation environment representing a low capacity weigh station. The simulation results demonstrate considerable benefits of the proposed algorithm in improving the overweight enforcement with minimal negative impacts on legal truck vehicles.