This paper describes the work of the USA's Heavy Vehicle Electronic Licence Plan (HELP) programme, and assesses the experience gained from the on-site evaluation of several technologies that it developed. HELP was a significant commercial vehicle operational research programme, whose integrated system for accurate monitoring of heavy vehicle operations has several advantages. It integrates three types of technologies, with advanced data communications and systems management, into a unified system for monitoring commercial vehicle operations. The technologies, which are described, are: (1) `weigh-in-motion', to determine vehicles' axle weights and gross weights as they move along a road; (2) automatic vehicle road; (2) automatic vehicle classification; and (3) automatic vehicle identification. HELP's Crescent Demonstration, along a corridor of roads from Texas via California to British Columbia, established several monitoring stations along this corridor. It enabled a field test of HELP's technologies in up to 35 sites each. Its on-site evaluation exercise evaluated the technologies' accuracies, and estimated HELP's impact on normal operating procedures at weigh-stations. Some potential applications of HELP technologies within Europe are considered.
Samenvatting