Wireless Roadside Inspection of Commercial Motor Vehicles

Abstract

The increase in truck mileage each year, with inspection resources remaining relatively constant, has motivated the development of a federal wireless roadside inspection (WRI) program. The WRI program is meant to increase the frequency of inspections substantially with the use of technology to inspect commercial vehicles automatically. In concept, this greater frequency will improve the effectiveness of manual inspections by initially screening compliant drivers, vehicles, and carriers. WRI technology could be voluntary for compliant carriers, to increase credit for positive inspections, and mandatory for noncompliant carriers, to detect major safety problems. Increasing the probability of inspection should act as a deterrent for knowingly noncompliant vehicles and carriers. Quantifiable results of technologies and use scenarios deployed in the FMCSA-and RITA-sponsored pilot test are described. The test was performed in three states (New York, Tennessee, and Kentucky) to evaluate three technology platforms (dedicated short-range communications, commercial mobile radio services, and universal identification). The pilot test will inform, in part, the decision to deploy a national program in the future. This paper also describes the technical results from the 15-week pilot test. Its focus is system performance across all technologies and communication pathways in the context of WRI supporting a number of possible real-time and non–real-time scenarios. During the limited pilot test, few technical barriers supported the real-time and non–real-time scenarios; yet message accuracy and communication speed should be improved in a larger deployment.