The Alaska Department of Transportation (DOT), with assistance from researchers at the University of Alaska, recently completed a pilot that tracked asphalt-filled dump trucks from a weigh station in Anchorage to the Glenn Highway construction site, located about an hour’s drive away. This involved utilizing an RFID solution that includes 900 MHz active tags attached to trucks, as well as readers installed at the weigh station and attached to a paver—a vehicle that applies hot-mix asphalt to a new road surface—on the construction site. Asphalt, which costs approximately $115 per ton, must be laid while still warm in order for it to set properly, or else a road could experience cracks or other problems down the line. In this session, hear how the pilot used radio frequency identification to track a total of 50,000 tons of asphalt, laid along a 10-mile-long section of a six-lane roadway under construction. Learn how the project provided accurate and reliable data, including an exact record of when each truck was at a particular location, as well as how long it remained there.
Speaker:
Jim Sweeney, P.E., Research Engineer, Statewide Research Section, Alaska Department of Transportation (DOT)