Best Practices in Permitting of Oversize and Overweight Vehicles: Final Report

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

The literature review component of the environmental scan produced several documents that either identified best practices or included recommendations on best practices for improving the permitting of oversize/overweight (OS/OW) loads. The results were used to identify key OS/OW permitting issues that are either being addressed through automation or have the potential to use automation. This list of issues was incorporated into the questions used to guide the interviews with officials from the States with automated permitting systems selected for inclusion in the current study.

Reference #1:

Government Accountability Office (GAO), Transportation Safety: The Federal Highway Administration Should Conduct Research to Determine Best Practices in Oversize/Overweight Permitting, GAO-15-236 (Washington, DC: GAO, February 2015). Available at: http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/668711.pdf

The Joint Explanatory Statement of the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2014 required GAO to review how the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and States regulate the movement of oversize vehicles. This report discusses (1) how the Department of Transportation (DOT) regulates and provides oversight of oversize vehicles and (2) how States regulate oversize vehicles. Congress directed the development of this report study as a response to the incident involving a bridge strike by an OS/OW load, resulting in a collapse of a portion of the Skagit River Bridge in Washington State and significant disruption to traffic and freight movement along the I-5 Corridor.

GAO conducted a comprehensive review of FHWA and State regulations, permitting practices, and size and weight enforcement activities. The study's primary conclusions were that State permitting practices vary significantly and States would benefit from the development of a best practices guidance document. The study's primary recommendation was that the Secretary of DOT should direct FHWA to conduct the necessary research and develop a best practices guidance document with an emphasis on automated permitting systems.

Reference #2:

CPCS Transcom Ltd., Perkins Motor Transport, Inc., and Portscape, Inc., National Cooperative Highway Research Project (NCHRP) Report 830: Multi-State, Multimodal Oversize/Overweight Transportation, (Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, 2016. Available at: https://www.nap.edu/read/23607/chapter/1#vi

This study, sponsored by the Transportation Research Board (TRB), included a comprehensive review of State requirements for the permitting of OS/OW freight load movements throughout the United States. The study examined existing challenges facing industry, looking at both the intrastate (movement of loads on State and local roads) and interstate (between States) movement of freight and estimated the public costs resulting from the inefficient movement of OS/OW loads. The study also identified areas for improving the movement of OS/OW loads, including:

• Improve the use of technology to facilitate route planning and permitting by automating State permitting processes.
• Integrate local permitting processes so that carriers can obtain all permits needed for a route that includes State and local roads.
• Communicate regularly with carriers that are using open permits, in order to provide regular information on changes in permit status resulting from issues such as work zones and construction, weather events, or traffic incidents. This will enable carriers to know when to update and revise permitted routes, and
• Improve the availability of information regarding physical restrictions along proposed routes to ensure improved permit accuracy and better alignment of the movement of OS/OW loads along routes that are designed to accommodate the permitted loads.

Reference #3:

D. Middleton, Y, Li, J. Le, and N. Koncz, Accommodating Oversize and Overweight Loads: Technical Report, FHWA/TX-12/0-6404-1 (Austin, TX: Texas Transportation Institute: July 2012). Available at: http://d2dtl5nnlpfr0r.cloudfront.net/tti.tamu.edu/documents/0-6404-1.pdf

The Texas Department of Transportation-sponsored study resulted in a statewide map that proposed primary and alternate OS/OW routes for the most commonly used origins and destinations. The study included a comprehensive international and national review of the use of technology to improve the movement of OS/OW loads, including such applications as:

• Permit issuance and auto-route generation.
• Bridge safety assessments to support routing decisions.
• Enhanced en-route surveillance and notifications to carriers of changes in route restrictions.

Reference #4:

Arora and Associates, P.C., NCHRP Report 20-68A, Scan 1201 Advances in State DOT Superload Permit Processes and Practices, April 2014. Available at: http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/nchrp/docs/NCHRP20-68A_12-01.pdf

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO)/TRB-sponsored scan focused on identifying the current processes and criteria used by States for OS/OW permitting. The scan was designed to collect information on current practices, identify best practices, and recommend potential improvements that could be made to OS/OW permitting procedures. Key recommendations included promoting the use of automated permitting systems that include the following functionality:

• Central database.
• Data entry and verification interface (graphical user interface).
• Routing system module with geographical database that contains the network and detailed link information (e.g., roadway and bridge widths, clearances, and other information that would affect the routing decisions).
• Bridge structural analysis module with an application program interface.
• Payment and billing system with user interface. ³

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