The Heavy Vehicle License Plate Program and Crescent Demonstration Project

Walton, C. Michael; ,

The Heavy Vehicle License Plate Program and Crescent Demonstration Project

by C. Michael Walton, Univ of Texas at Austin, Austin, United States,

Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Applications of Advanced Technologies in Transportation Engineering

Abstract:

The HELP Program and Cresent Demonstration Project is a bi-national multi-state cooperative study and demonstration project involving government and industry participating to investigate new technologies that have the potential to provide an integrated heavy vehicle management system with applications to both highway and vehicle systems. This initiative has been described as a leading example of the Intelligent Vehicle Highway System (IVHS) initiative focusing on commercial vehicle operations (CVO). The study elements of this project focus on selected technologies that can be integrated into a heavy vehicle management system: (1) automatic vehicle identification (AVI), (2) weigh in motion (WIM), (3) automatic vehicle classification (AVC), (4) data communication networks including systems integration. The program, initiated approximately seven years ago, consists of three phases which include assessing the feasibility of the concept, technical studies involving laboratory and field tests, and, lastly, the demonstration phase. Perhaps the most significant of the activities to be derived from this project to date are those focusing on institutional arrangements afforded by the emerging technology in this experiment. The demonstration element of the program, referred to as the Cresent Demonstration Project, began in 1991 involving six states within the United States and in one province of Canada and will be phased into a full scale operation over the next three years. It is estimated that over the life of the program and the project that more than $20 million will be expended or contributed by both industry and government in testing this landmark program. This paper provides an overview of the program and the components of the implementation plan.

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