Toxic trucks passing by? Good Route could protect Europe's roads

Did you know that millions of trucks ply Europe’s roads each year carrying billions of tonnes of toxic chemicals, flammable fuel and radioactive waste? And were you aware that such trucks have regularly passed through densely populated areas using critical bridges and tunnels with little guidance or oversight as to the safest route?

Well, a new routing and monitoring system developed by European researchers promises to make European roads safer while also saving truck drivers time and money.

“Dangerous goods often have to be transported by road for a variety of reasons, the most obvious example being the tanker trucks used to refill petrol stations,” said Dimitrios Tzovaras, a researcher at the Informatics and Telematics Institute of the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH) in Greece. “However, they often do not take the safest route to their destination.”

Working in the EU-funded Good Route project, Tzovaras led a team of researchers from six European countries to develop a routing, monitoring and safety enforcement system for dangerous-goods vehicles. The system combines information about road infrastructure and populated areas with real-time weather and traffic data from transport authorities to plot the safest itinerary for truck drivers to follow.

While in transit, the truck’s position is monitored by a global positioning system (GPS). A general packet radio service connection to a PDA in the truck’s cab allows transport company operators or traffic authorities to dynamically change routing information on the fly in the event of a traffic jam or deviation, always choosing the safest alternatives.

“Transport companies usually plan journeys around the fastest or shortest route,” Tzovaras said. “We created an algorithm that calculates the safest route as well as taking into account costs and efficiency. The goal is to minimise the consequences of a possible accident without excessively impacting journey times or transport costs.”

Though often the safest route will not be the shortest or fastest, in certain circumstances providing greater assurances that a hazardous cargo will reach its destination safely would save haulers time and money.

Like many European tunnel operators, authorities in charge of managing the Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland, where the Good Route project conducted a trial last year, prohibit most dangerous goods vehicles from passing through it. The ban is intended to increase safety in the tunnel, but it forces vehicles carrying hazardous substances onto secondary roads, which increases journey times, transport costs and can take trucks through populated areas.

“The Good Route system helps ensure that a truck makes it through the tunnel safely,” Tzovaras said. “Sensors fitted to the vehicle continually monitor its weight and the state of its cargo, and this information is automatically sent to local control nodes at the tunnel entrance or at a toll station. In this way, trucks carrying cargo that does not constitute a serious danger to safety inside the tunnel would be let through while only those deemed high risk would be diverted.”

The technology was also tested by operators of the Fréjus Tunnel between Italy and France and on project partner Destia’s bridges in Finland.

Information gathered by sensors onboard the truck could also be sent to police, allowing law enforcement officers to know remotely which trucks have broken speed limits or restrictions on driving time, for example.

“This would cut down on the number of trucks that are pulled over by police to be inspected, something that would save transporters time and money, so long as their drivers follow the rules,” Tzovaras said.

However, even though transport companies stand to benefit by implementing safety-orientated guidance, monitoring and enforcement systems in their vehicles, not least by being able to promote themselves as more socially and environmentally responsible, Tzovaras said the technology is likely to be used extensively only if it is mandated by public authorities.

“The cost and efficiency benefits for transporters are not great enough by themselves to offset the expense of implementation,” he said. “Therefore, we think a top-down approach will be needed … and, for that, political will is required. Unfortunately, it will probably only happen after a serious accident.”