Citation

Anderson KO, Bervell JA, Teply S. Proc. Int. Tech. Conf. Enhanced Safety Vehicles 1992; 1992: 316-322.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, In public domain, Publisher National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In 1988 the Canadian Council of Ministers of Transportation under the Roads and Transportation Association of Canada (RTAC now TAC) made recommendations for a common set of truck weight and dimension limits on highway pavements in Canada. This effort was aimed at ensuring uniform interprovincial regulations in order to improve the efficiency of the trucking industry. The changes were implemented in Alberta in 1988. One-year "before" and "after" data from an instrumented traffic counting and weigh-in- motion site on a major 4-lane rural arterial highway in Alberta were used to investigate the impact of increased axle weight limits and different axle configurations on the pavement structure. This paper describes the data set-up, analytical process used and illustrates the severity of the impact on pavements using a design example. The analysis indicates that the one-directional average daily traffic increased some 12%, from 13,000 vehicles/day in 1986 to 14,600 in 1989. Although the percentage of trucks only increased from 10 to 11.8%, the equivalent single axle loads (ESALs), were almost 70% higher. Based on these data, it appears that the impact of the changes in trucking regulations is significant.