Bay of Plenty's Paengaroa weigh station is being upgraded with a new vehicle screening system which identifies potentially overweight heavy vehicles to be further investigated and allows compliant heavy vehicles to continue their journey uninterrupted.

The Paengaroa weigh station is one of four existing weigh stations being upgraded with the new vehicle screening system and eight new CVSC's being built through the Weigh Right Programme.

The vehicle screening system involves weigh-in-motion or in-road scales, automatic number plate recognition cameras, and electronic signs, which all work together to determine whether a heavy vehicle is overweight, or not.

'What we want is to have safer roads and the vehicle screening system will contribute towards safer roads,” says NZ Transport Agency programme manager David Pearks.

'Many non-compliant overweight heavy vehicle operators avoid detection while the journey of compliant vehicles is unnecessarily disrupted as they wait for inspection.

'The new vehicle screening technology will increase heavy vehicle compliance as it targets potentially overweight heavy vehicles for further investigation. By reducing the risk of overweight heavy vehicles operating on our roads, we will achieve safer roads.”

The vehicle screening system is being installed at the four approaches to the Paengaroa roundabout. Paengaroa is located within the ‘Golden Triangle', making it an important location to achieving the goals of the Weigh Right Programme which is to:

Improve road safety by reducing the number of overweight vehicles travelling on our roads.

Increase heavy vehicles weight compliance without impacting productivity or imposing unnecessary cost on compliant vehicles.

Ensure that operators pay their fair share of road maintenance by targeting, and screening for, overweight vehicles.

As a heavy vehicle passes, data is gathered centrally and checked against the vehicle's allocated licenses and permits.

Within seconds, the number plate of potentially overweight heavy vehicles will appear on the roadside screen with instructions to stop for further investigation.

These results are also forwarded in real-time to the closest CVSC providing the Commercial Vehicle Safety Team with details of the non-compliant overweight heavy vehicle.

'We can now target potentially overweight vehicles making better use of resources and time.”

Paengaroa is the second of 12 CVSC sites to be rolled out in the Weigh Right Programme. The weigh station at Glasnevin was upgraded and opened in January 2019.

Other locations include Rakaia, Taupo, Mackays Crossing, Ohakea, Napier Port, Port of Tauranga, Marsden Point, as well as Bombay, Albany and Stanley Street in Auckland.

The locations are on routes with a volume above the One Network Road Classification high volume threshold of 1,200 heavy vehicles per day and cover 46 per cent of the total freight kilometres travelled in New Zealand. These sites are close to major centres, seaports or significant highway junctions.