HEAVYROUTE Final Seminar

The volume of freight transport on roads has grown steadily over the years and is expected to increase significantly over the next decade.  From the point of view of a road operator, this will lead to accelerated damage to bridges and pavement fatigue as well as creating major traffic management problems to maintain safety and reduce congestion.  For truck operators, there are the combined challenges of reducing ever increasing fuel costs, maximising efficiency and profitability whilst maintaining safety.  For truck drivers, they have the additional tasks of charting a safe and appropriate route.

THE FP6 project “Heavyroute” was based on the belief that one major support for all three parties could come from the improvement in the generation and usage of maps for trucks in Europe. The use of mapping systems based in satellite guidance has increased dramatically and is providing major benefits to professional drivers.  However there are many stories of drivers finding themselves on inappropriate routes for their vehicle.

Working with all the major stakeholders, the Heavyroute project worked to provide the tools, the systems and the data collection and interpretation processes that will effectively link Europe’s road infrastructure via electronic mapping systems to the truck operators and drivers.  This will provide a major boost to the efficiency, profitably and safety of the haulage sector whilst contributing to overall road safety and congestion and infrastructure asset management objectives.

Three main applications were developed based on vehicle/infrastructure interaction models together with detailed data on the vehicle itself, the infrastructure and the traffic.

Pre-trip route planning

• Allowable routes were derived based on “HGV specific data” together with physical and legal restrictions on the infrastructure
• Recommended routes were then derived based on arguments addressing fuel consumption, emissions, noise, safety, driver comfort and infrastructure maintenance costs.

Driving support

• Real time driver warning and recommended driving to avoid critical situations (for example recommended speed to avoid roll-over)

Monitoring and management of HGV’s at bridges

• Advice on speed, minimum vehicle spacing and/or lane change to keep appropriate loading of bridges