Safety of Personal Vehicles on Mountain Passes During the Winter Period

Abstract

Not only overloaded trucks are potential risk while driving mountain passes during the winter time, but also incorrectly loaded resp. overloaded personal vehicles. Each personal vehicle has defined maximum load for technical condition guarantee and its handling. The maximum allowable weight of trucks shall be given by national standards according to vehicle category. However, personal vehicles are all classified into one category “vehicles till 3,5 tons”. By recognizing of the vehicle make and model and its accurate weighing in motion, we would know to check compliance with permitted weight limits per axle for a particular vehicle model. We would detect vehicles in traffic stream, which may have a problem with maneuverability under the winter conditions and thus endangers yourself as well as other road users. Traffic control system should get flag severity of the risk associated with vehicle pass through the mountain pass under the adverse weather condition. The paper deals with monitoring methods of personal vehicles for purpose of vehicle make and model recognition, determine the accurate weight and weather condition. Authors also propose scenarios for the traffic control system regards the received data processing, a comparison with the implemented technical database (technical parameters of vehicle model), risk assessments and implementation of measures – action of the traffic control system (warning, appropriate message, online escort, etc.). Wintertime in mountain terrain is critical for transport. Traffic system should be able to detect any potential risk in time and eliminate it in terms of maintaining the safest possible traffic operation and traffic fluidity.