Three small lines on an interstate can prevent an untold amount of accidents and blowouts.
Those lines are sensors that detect tire anomalies, which the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has identified as the most frequent vehicle-related factor in fatal crashes.
When International Road Dynamics Inc. deployed its tire anomaly and classification system (TACS) in 2018, North Carolina was one of the first states to test it, installing a single system on a ramp to a weigh station. The North Carolina Department of Public Safety has since had 16 TACS systems installed along its interstates.
“What we have found is it's extremely effective at catching those flat tires or busted tires that are out of service, and its ability to catch them is really unbelievable,” said NCDPS Master Trooper Kendell Jackson. “A lot of times it's a tire that you normally just can't see with the naked eye that it's flat. It may just be extremely low in air. Just to look at the truck you might not notice. But for the most part that tire will go on down the road; no one will catch it, and those tires come off the rim. That … causes wrecks. So it's actually just an amazing piece of equipment.”
Jackson said the first mainline tech system the state installed had an increase of 600% in tire violations in the first month of use.
TACS uses Vectorsense in-road sensors that can operate at mainline highway speeds up to 100 miles per hour to screen commercial vehicles for tire anomalies. When a tire rolls over a sensor, the contact patch where the tire puts pressure onto the roadway can detect flat, missing, mismatched or underinflated tires.
Jackson said when a truck is flagged for a tire anomaly, it is pulled into the weigh station parking lot for inspection. The TACS system shows inspectors exactly which tire needs attention, and that truck is placed out of service until the problem is fixed.
