Transport: Hi-tech sensors for the safety of bridges and viaducts in Italy

Real time assessment of the impact of heavy traffic on bridges, viaducts and other strategic infrastructures of the road network with smart, hi-tech systems capable of calculating the weight of trucks in motion and offer alternative solutions to ensure road safety.

This is the objective of SENTINEL, a weigh-in-motion system for heavy traffic management, an experimental project which has recently kicked off with ENEA acting as the lead partner and ANAS, Takius Srl and the Consortium TRAIN.

A first pilot demonstrator will be built on the Salerno-Reggio Calabria, the A2 motorway, in a site identified by ANAS in a viaduct in the Campania region, funded with approximately 4.6 million euro^[1] over a period of 30 months. The device will enable to immediately detect overloaded vehicles surpassing the weight limit and acquire useful information for the proper  maintenance of bridges, viaducts or road sections near road junctions, or having specific altitude and/or environmental / climate characteristics.

These are increasingly frequent problems linked to the significant increase in freight road traffic, which is also among the hypotheses being considered to explain the collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa. "Its most innovative aspect lies in the combination of the weigh-in-motion system and predictive models based on traffic and load conditions, as well as factors like altitude and weather conditions and safety strategies such as channeling traffic onto viable alternative routes or stops in storage areas", Piero De Fazio, ENEA researcher at the Energy Technologies Department, explained.

SENTINEL is the latest, chronologically, of the 39 national and European projects and orders amounting to over 100 million euro of funding acquired by TRAIN, the Consortium for research and development of technologies for innovative transport. The project counts among its partners ENEA (with 56.87%), Ansaldo STS SpA, Rina Consulting SpA, Hitachi Rail Italy SpA, ETT SpA, MERMEC SpA, MHPS Italy Srl and the University of Salerno. Founded in 1998, TRAIN conducts research and development of innovative technologies in the fields of transport and logistics, energy and ICT, with particular reference to sustainable mobility, diagnostics and maintenance, safety, energy efficiency, biofuels and the agri-food chain.

"Telematics for mobility ^[2] with ICT and ITS sytems is one of the key tools of innovative transport. Over the years, TRAIN has conducted significant research and experimental development activities also developing demonstrators on a real scale", Filippo Ragazzo, CEO of the consortium TRAIN, pointed out. "Other areas of excellence are advanced systems and new technologies, also based on information technology and robotics, to respond to the growing demand for transport safety as well as diagnostics and maintenance based on prevention and prediction, in order to expedite as much as possible solutions to problems, and ensure the highest level of reliability and safety ", Ragazzo concluded.

As regards the energy field, TRAIN's successful case histories concern the control and monitoring system (Control Room) of energy efficiency, developed for Poste Italiane buildings on 67 post offices in Sicily, and the reduction of environmental, social and economic impacts of transport, including fuel from the development of biomass.

For more information please contact:

Piero De Fazio, ENEA – Head ‘Instruments for Energy Applications’ – Energy Technologies Department  - ENEA Trisaia Research Center, piero.defazio@enea.it.

Consortium TRAIN https://www.consorziotrain.org

[1] As part of the tax incentives for projects of Industrial Research and Experimental   Development in the  12 specialist areas (Sustainable Mobility Area) listed by the PNR 2015 – 2020

[2] ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) e ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems)