The manufacturers of onboard scales insist that MSW collection and transfer operators are missing the boat by not installing their equipment. But just what are the benefits of onboard weighing systems, and how are they really working in the field?

By Penelope Grenoble O'Malley

"There's a belief that onboard scales are just about weight," observes Lori Dorhmann of Weigh Right Inc. in Wichita, KS. The company makes a transducer-based system that measures the compression of a vehicle's suspension and converts that measurement to weight. "In fact, scales are a tool that can help operators run their business more efficiently by providing information on which to make smart business decisions that really translate to the bottom line."

Rick Talbot, marketing and sales manager for Vulcan On-Board Scales in Kent, WA, offers an overview: "Although many people think onboard scales are installed to prevent overweight fines, most are installed for other reasons, including front-fork scales that measure individual commercial pickup weights and load cells on rolloffs to make decisions about landfill choices more cost-effective. Scales also help transfer stations to maximize their loads, which without scales routinely run from 5% to 10% underweight." Other benefits manufacturers tout include maximized equipment efficiency, reduced wear and tear on both equipment and infrastructure, improved customer service, and considerations such as reduced stress on drivers. Too good to be true? Read on.

Avoiding Overweight Fines and Inconvenience

More than 25 years ago, electronic onboard scales were introduced to monitor gross-vehicle or payload weight in industries, such as the logging industry in the American Northwest, in which no platform scales were available. Since then, advancements have made onboard weight systems much more accurate and reliable. For example, manufacturers now offer such features as electronic displays in truck cabs. These displays facilitate trouble-shooting and offer the capacity to interface with billing and accounting software.

In the North American market, the load-cell technology offered by Vulcan, SI/Allegheny, and Creative Microsystems's Loadman system has been a standard for conventional suspensions. Air-Weigh Inc. of Eugene, OR, offers onboard systems for vehicles with air suspension. (See the sidebar for an overview of systems and their applicability.)

"The number-one payback is not avoiding overweight fines," notes Eric Ellison, Vulcan's director of marketing and sales, "it's optimizing the payload." Ellison's observation aside, most private and municipal operators insist that the primary reason they've installed scales on either transfer or collection vehicles is to avoid going over weight. "We have a city policy that restricts weights on certain streets," states Eric Hanson, shop foreman and safety coordinator for the Solid Waste Department of the City of West Fargo, ND, "and it came to light that our sanitation trucks had the potential to go over those limits. We figured we ought to set the right example."

Fargo installed a Weigh Right system on one of its rearloaders five years ago and now specs all new equipment with the transducer-based system. Aside from keeping the sanitation vehicles in compliance with new city regulations, data from the onboard system indicated that the city was overbuying collection capacity. The 25-yd. trucks in use at the time went over weight before they reached capacity. The city is now replacing these trucks with 20-yd. machines, which offer the added benefit of easier handling in residential areas. "I don't know if it's so much that you get a return on your investment," Hansen reflects, "but scales certainly buy you peace of mind, and in a municipality like ours, the payback is also less wear and tear on the roads."

The same goes in Tucson, AZ, where Solid Waste Administrator Mike Nelson states that 99% of the reason Weigh Right's scales were installed on city-run collection vehicles was to eliminate the routine problem of running over weight on city streets.

In South Dakota, concern about infrastructure damage from overweight trucks on state and county roads, especially those maintained by small communities with a limited tax base, led to a move two years ago to up the state's overweight penalties. Acting on the governor's concern that as much as 10% of the state's annual road maintenance budget–between $40 million and $50 million a year–went to repair damage caused by overweight trucks, the state legislature upped the fines as much as 50%.

"Eighty percent of overweight loads here are in the 1,000- to 3,000-pound range," declares Sergeant Noel Gabriel of South Dakota Highway Patrol Carrier Enforcement in Pierre, SD. "We believe this can be incidental overweight, and while our goal is to reduce all overweight situations, we particularly want to reduce the 20% of vehicles that are 5,000 pounds and over." A flat fine of $135 is levied on all overweight vehicles, but the real sting comes in the per-pound penalties: a nickel per pound for vehicles over weight by 1,000-3,000 lb., 15 cents for 3,000-4,000 lb., 22.5 cents a pound for 4,000-5,000 lb., and 37.5 cents a pound for 5,000 lb. or more.

Air-Weigh is installed on several refuse trucks at the KE Enterprise operation.

As a result of the new fines and tighter enforcement, the number of grossly overweight vehicles dropped from 93 in the first six months of 2000 to 68; and in the first year of the program, the state collected $2,009,149 in fines and civil penalties.

The highway patrol is engaged in ongoing educational outreach to the local trucking community, an effort that includes a videotape presentation and live seminars. Gabriel also reports that other states have expressed interest in South Dakota's program. As one industry observer put it, there's no doubt that states and other municipalities have discovered not only that overweight fines are a good source of revenue, but also that cutting down on the number of trucks running over weight does reduce infrastructure wear and tear. "Our port-of-entry scales are open 24 hours, seven days a week," says Gabriel. "Often we have trucks that come all the way from Texas or Florida, and it's only when they get here that they find they're overweight."

Haulers and transfer station operators also report regulatory agencies have taken to establishing check points that intercept trucks just before they reach a landfill. In addition, landfill accounts are being audited and retroactive tickets issued for routine offenders, even if the regulators are not on-site when the dumping occurs.

Both developments are causing many landfill operators to be less accommodating about accepting overweight loads. And most observers expect these trends to continue, following the lead taken by such states as South Dakota, California, and Florida–all big on enforcing overweight laws–as well as such countries as Canada and Great Britain.

Hew Davies, director of Air-Weigh Inc. Ltd. in the UK, characterizes onboard weighing in Great Britain and other parts of Europe as "virtually a must. It's a standard fit on the tipping-trailer sector over here, enabling operators to maintain maximum payloads and to avoid weigh-bridge runarounds for overloading or underloading. The larger vehicles that take the waste away from transfer stations tend to be private contractors, and since they're being paid by the ton, it's critical that each vehicle achieves full capacity."

Davies also confirms that concerns about infrastructure have led to a greater interest in air suspension–a system that is more "road friendly" in the eyes of the European industry. He reports that nearly all vehicles heavier than 36 tons are required by law to run on this type of suspension. Although the UK has just introduced 44-ton gross vehicle weight (GVW) this year on articulated trucks and trailers running on six axles, the option is only good if vehicles run on air.

Onboard Scales and Transfer Stations

"Before we got into this," recalls Vulcan's Ellison, "my initial concept was how much of a big deal can it be to have to go back to reweigh. But it is a big deal. You don't want to be too heavy, and at the same time you don't want to be too under-heavy. Otherwise you're making a trip that's not even paying for its own cost."

Because many operators typically don't collect all the data they need to calculate what sending out trucks underweight costs them, Rick Talbot offers a hypothetical example. "Using 30 scale tickets and a gross weight of 80,000 pounds, let's say you determine your average weight is 76,000 pounds and your tare weight is 33,000 pounds for an actual payload of 43,000 pounds, which is 4,000 pounds below your maximum. Considering three loads a day, this means your per-day shortage at this weight is 12,000 pounds per vehicle, which works out annually to 2.99 million pounds and requires 67 extra loads per truck per year. Let's further say that the round trip to the landfill is 100 miles and your cost is $2 per mile. The difference between maximum and actual payload turns out to be $13,400 per vehicle a year. In other words, it's costing you $13,400 per vehicle annually not to load your trucks up to capacity."

On the other hand, Talbot observes that if you're running over weight, considering the cost of weighing, out-of-route miles to the scales for 120 scale trips per vehicle per year at an average cost of $8, with 22 loads that need adjustment at a cost of $60 per adjustment, you're looking at $1,320 per vehicle. "This adds up to a cost to our hypothetical operator–who has opted to run without scales–of $20,060 per transfer vehicle per year," Talbot points out.

"For anyone who has used an onboard scale to maximize productivity, operating without one is like trying to maintain safe highway speeds without a speedometer," remarks Air-Weigh Marketing Vice President Peter Powell. Kerry Johansen, fleet facilities manager for KE Enterprises in McMinnville, OR, agrees. The company runs collection operations on the coast and inland, and what's collected on the coast comes 120 mi. inland to the company's transfer station.

"At 120 miles, we want to max out our loads and still stay legal," stresses Johansen. "We have scales on the trailers and on the tractors under the fifth wheel, and we have reader boards up for the loader, so when he's loading the vehicle, he can make sure he gets his weight distributed properly from front to rear at the same time he maximizes the load and stays legal."

KE Enterprises has typically used load-cell and transducer technology for its transfer vehicles. The company was introduced to air-suspension technology by chance when it bought a used collection truck with rear airbag suspension and needed a component for the front axle. "We got in touch with a guy in Washington who had put it on a rolloff," relates Johansen. "He fabricated some brackets and installed an airbag, not as a suspension component but just enough where you can read some air pressure and calibrate the scale to tell you what kind of weight you have on your front axle. We ended up putting the same system on a tractor we converted to a rolloff and also on our brand-new frontloader, which we ordered with an airbag rear suspension [a Peterbilt 320 with a McNeilus body with airbags on the front axle].

"The rebuilt truck is now used for collecting source-separated recycling, where Air-Weigh's onboard system provides the means to provide the various jurisdictions the company serves an accounting of what's collected," explains Johansen. He says he chose the Air-Weigh system because the individual compartments on the collection vehicle were fitted with a lift mechanism underneath, so there was no place to install a load cell.

Recycling Coordinator Matt Stern likes the result. "We cross something like 18 jurisdictional lines, so we're able to track the materials for a specific jurisdiction, and the onboard scales allow us to do that without going off the route." The driver manually keeps track of the stops using a log sheet, and Stern reports that the company uses the information to allocate costs and to track actual recycling amounts.

Front-Fork Technology

One of the most recent developments in onboard scales is the front-fork system, available from Creative Microsystems, SI/Allegheny, and Vulcan. This system provides haulers a means to keep track of cumulative weights and to determine a net payload.

Both private and municipal haulers who collect commercial bins with either rearloaders or frontloaders have long desired a means to improve productivity; and improving the accuracy of materials picked up is one way to achieve that goal. "We were kind of getting beat on," notes Tom Cifaloglio of Cifaloglio Inc. in Newtonville, NJ. "Drivers would tell us about running into a can that had concrete or construction debris, and we were only quoting for residential or restaurant waste." The company originally installed a load-cell system on one of its two rearloader collection vehicles and shifted the truck back and forth on its routes to get a handle on what they were collecting. "We didn't even have a printout," recalls Cifaloglio.

Since then the company has entered the frontload business and has installed an SI front-fork scale on one of its new vehicles. "We bought a used fleet, and because we didn't want to have to lift the frontloader bodies up to install a conventional load-cell system, we decided to try the front fork." So far, according to Cifaloglio, the company uses the new system primarily to keep track of the load they pick up versus the load they originally quoted to collect. If these two loads differ, explains Cifaloglio, "We go back and readjust the weight or otherwise straighten it out." In terms of what he'd tell someone thinking about scales, "Do it and get it done with," he suggests.

"Without onboard scales, we'd probably be overbilling," observes Brian Howell, operations manager for Howell Trucking in Cumberland, MD. Howell also has an SI front-fork weigh-in motion system on one of his frontloaders. "The obvious reason to install an onboard scale is for better route management and to know which of your customers is costing you money. Ten years ago when you raised someone's prices and they came back to you and asked how come, you told them [the loads] were too heavy. But when they asked how you knew, the only thing you had to go on was information that came from the driver. Now I have proof. I have a truck that's within 5% of the given weight at all times."

Although he wouldn't be specific, Howell says he knows the income his one front-fork system has brought in from readjusted rates far outweighs the cost of the system. "It paid for itself in a year; you don't worry about your 2 yards or 4 yards that are behind the department store, and you get cardboard out of every week and now and then a load of office waste. You worry about the guy who every week or every other week is 1,200, 1,500 pounds. I want to keep an eye on him."

Hanson also thinks the front-fork scales are an easy way to monitor new accounts and bid jobs. He never quotes a price until he has serviced an account for a month. "Here we bid the entire school system at one time, so it's difficult to come up with a competitive price. High schools throw away more stuff than middle schools, for example. So three or four months before the bid, the drivers trade trucks back and forth, and we weigh what we collect at all the various schools. I want to come up with a competitive price, but I don't want to get licked by being too competitive."

Surrounded by chain haulers, including BFI and Waste Management, Howell maintains that the key for small haulers is service, which means routing out the customers that cost you money. (Cifaloglio, who's in the same boat, agrees.) "You want the quality customers," adds Howell. "If you put on front-fork scales and up your rates, you'll probably lose 20% of your customers right off. But most of them will come back, 10% at least, and those who don't come back are probably deadbeats." Scale information is coordinated with customer ID, which drivers enter by hand. According to Howell, drivers don't mind the extra work because the scales help them decide when it's time to head for the landfill.

In Glendale, CA, driver stress was one of the prime reasons the city went to onboard scales on its fleet of 11 frontloaders–in this case, Weigh Right's transducer system. "You never know when the highway patrol is going to be out checking," remarks Dean Minor, the city's integrated waste supervisor. "Sometimes they'll be right in the scale house waiting. The scales make the drivers a little more comfortable; it's rough when you've got to do your job and then go up to the landfill and hope you're not overweight. The scales help relieve the stress." The frontloaders the city uses to collect from roughly 5,000 commercial accounts have all been outfitted.

In Toronto, Miller Waste Systems reports that driver safety considerations were the primary factor the company decided on Creative Microsystems's front-fork system. It came to this conclusion after a six-month trial. "The accuracy and reliability of both systems were comparable, but what the investigator noticed was one system was more driver-friendly in that the driver wasn't switching his attention from driving the truck to the screen," points out Miller's Ron MacKinnon, who oversaw the test, "and we thought it wouldn't be as safe. Drivers have it tough as it is with accidents, and you want their attention on the job as much as possible."

In Glendale, Weigh Right's scales are calibrated so that the overweight warning light goes on at half a ton before the truck goes over weight. The light helps drivers resist the impulse to dump one or two more bins before they head off the route. Minor says that because drivers need to make fewer trips to the landfill to ensure that their loads are not overweight, there is less wear and tear on collection equipment.

Although most municipalities and many private haulers that have installed onboard scales haven't given much thought to the data management capability the scales offer, this capability definitely exists. Chuck Palmer, director of information technology at Wasteco in Toronto, ON, explains: "Because of the way landfill costs escalated in the early 1990s in the Toronto region, we installed scales with the idea that they would measure the total weight of our vehicles and avoid any fines for overloaded vehicles. But we've taken it a few steps further. The first thing we did was to incorporate in our runsheet management the capability of the driver to record individual customer weights, which we used as a tool to check for heavy bins and adjust our billing."

Integrating the New Technology

Similar to Cifaloglio and Hanson, Wasteco originally used a manual system along with physical runsheets. Palmer stresses that the company also envisioned a need for a more efficient means of integrating the scale systems with the office information systems. "You can have transposition errors, or the driver may enter the wrong weight for the wrong customer or an incorrect pickup time, which is important because we're also tracking vehicle productivity using the runsheet."

"What we've been looking for over the past three years is to be able to bring the scaling and routing statistics and the billing together in a cost-effective way." The company is currently testing a program from Tetra Systems in Montreal, which uses radio waves to generate the runsheet automatically and relay information on the day's pickups to a computer system onboard the collection vehicle. The driver views the information on an onboard monitor and presses a function key when he empties a bin, and the weights are attached directly to the customer. The date and time of pickup is also recorded. In addition, the system incorporates global positioning system information, which is downloaded into a base station computer so that dispatch can reschedule any blocked or missed calls. The system automatically notes the cost of extra pickups.

Wasteco's test system is currently running in conjunction with two Vulcan front-end fork systems, and if the experiment is successful, Palmer says it will be rolled out companywide and include 70 collection vehicles in two separate locations. He expects the investment will pay for itself in a year. "We're integrating waste, times, and locations. We're cutting down on error and increasing our accuracy rate, and we're hoping that it will also provide better accuracy in preventative maintenance on the vehicles." Palmer estimates that in addition to the cost of the scales, "the next level of service," as he calls it, will cost about $2,500 per vehicle to integrate the onboard weighing system with office information systems.

"This is one of the most interesting things I've done in my life," boasts Air-Weigh's Powell. "People call me and tell they're never going to operate without an onboard scale again. They tell me they were pulled over because they were overweight, told the highway patrol officer to take a look at their scales, and they were legal."

Other Issues to Consider

Powell's UK associate thinks onboard weighing systems are primed for more than this minimal use. "Onboard weighing will play an enormous part in the future of transportation," believes Huw Davies, "not only as a helpful tool to enable maximum payloads and axle overloads but as a safety issue. With the introduction of vehicle management systems through electronics, the weight factor comes in for braking performance, et cetera. And fuel economy, with the management system knowing the load of the vehicle, it can ensure that gear changes are correct at the right revs. Knowing what a vehicle weighs can be an important factor in all these areas and help make transport safer, as well as clamp down on people who ignore weight limits."

With all this potential, it must be frustrating for manufacturers to hear that only some 5% of refuse vehicles currently operating are equipped with onboard systems, and these vehicles are concentrated in areas where weight limits are strictly enforced or tipping fees high.

"It's a volatile business," admits Hanson. "It's not hard to make money, but competition's right around the corner." And maybe in the long run, giving managers the opportunity to compete more effectively will influence them to opt for onboard weighing systems more than the fear of accumulating overweight fines or the cheerleading efforts of the systems' manufacturers.

Journalist Penelope Grenoble O'Malley is a frequent contributor to environmental publications.