ASTM SUBCOMMITTEE E17.52 on TRAFFIC MONITORING DEVICES - Meeting Minutes - June 2000
ASTM SUBCOMMITTEE E17.52 on TRAFFIC MONITORING DEVICES

Minutes of June 20, 2000 - Meeting

Sheraton Centre Hotel — Toronto, Ontario, Canada


CALL TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order at 8:05 a.m. by Chair, Luz Elena Y. Mimbela (see Attachment 1 for the list of attending members).

MINUTES

Minutes of the December 6, 1999 meeting were approved as written.

TASK GROUP REPORTS

E17.52.92.2 - Pneumatic Road Tube (Perry Kent - Chairman)

Perry Kent reported on the status of the standard specification titled "Standard Specification for Pneumatic Tubing for Roadway Traffic Monitoring Devices." This standard was balloted during the last balloting process. Comments from Dr. Clyde Lee, Jerry Legg, and William Paterson were received and discussed at the June 19, 2000 Task Group meeting. These comments will be addressed and plans are to submit the revised standard for concurrent subcommittee and main committee ballot for the next balloting process. Following are several of the comments that were discussed during the June 2000 meetings (see attachment 2 for complete details):

  • Consistency of tube lengths mentioned in sections 4.5 and 4.8.1 needs to be checked and corrected if necessary;
  • Suggestion to change "axle hit" terminology to "tire impact" with axle hit in parentheses; and
  • Suggestion to check consistency of the definition of the term "breaking tensile strength" throughout the document.

E17.52.97.1 - Test Methods (Chairman - John Hamrick)

John Hamrick reported on the status of the standard test method titled "Test Method for Validating Vehicle Data Collection Devices Used for Vehicle Counts & Classification." The following are some of the items that were discussed at the June, 2000 meetings:

  • Suggestion to specify a volume count for field test portion of the standard (e.g. use minimum 100 vehicles if equipment runs on a vehicle per vehicle basis);
  • Suggestion was made to change this standard from a stadard test method to a standard practice due to general nature of standard; and
  • The revised standard will be put on the ASTM online forum and will be available for review and comment by August, 2000.


E17.52.97.4 - Revamp E1572 - 93 (Chairman - John Hamrick)

The revamping of E1572 - 93, which is the "Standard Practice for Classifying Highway Vehicles from Known Axle Count and Spacing" will include replacing the existing program with a new C-code program developed by the Idaho State Transportation Department. John Hamrick will follow up with the Idaho State Transportation Department to obtain the program for inclusion in the appendix section of the existing E1572. However, a suggestion was made at the June 2000 meetings to allow existing standard to expire and revise it as a new standard soon after. Comments regarding this suggestion are encouraged and should be directed to John Hamrick. John can be reached at telephone number 208/342-2983 or Email: jhamrick@micron.net.

E17.52.97.3 - Traffic Device Interconnect (Chairman - Peter Keen)

Peter Keen reported on the status of the DCM working group standards development activities. Peter distributed the latest CSO Quarterly Report and the latest version of the draft object tree structure developed by the DCM working group (see attachment 3).

E17.52.98.1 - Review of E1442-94 (Chairman - Perry Kent)

The "Standard Practice for Highway Traffic Monitoring," E1442-94, was revised and the revisions were balloted during the February, 2000 balloting process. Comments were received from James L. Burchett and Garry Chegwidden regarding the use of English or SI units (see attachment 2). A negative vote was received on the revision during the balloting process from Dr. Clyde Lee. During the June 20, 2000 E17.52 subcommittee meeting, the negative was unanimously ruled persuasive by the those present at the meeting.

In addition, Dr. Lee commented that much of the terminology and phraseology in the original document is imprecise, inconsistently used, vague, and often incorrect. Therefore, Dr. Lee suggested that the subcommittee should consider withdrawing this standard altogether. E17.52 subcommittee members present during the June 20, 2000 meeting agreed to submit a request to withdraw E1442-94 as an ASTM standard, since much of the material in this standard is covered in the Traffic Monitoring Guide (TMG) put out by the U.S. Department of Transportations’s FHWA. The request will be submitted for subcommittee and main committee ballot during the next balloting process. Subcommittee members and main committee members will get a chance to vote on whether or not this standard should be withdrawn from volume 04.03 of the Annual Book of ASTM Standards. Please refer to Attachment 2 for details on Dr. Lee’s comments and suggestions.

Ralph Gillman voiced some concern over losing some of the terminology should E1442-94 be withdrawn as an ASTM standard. Therefore, subcommittee members suggested that a letter be drafted and sent to those in charge of editing the TMG to recommend that those definitions not covered in the TMG but covered in E1442-94 should be included in the TMG. Perry Kent volunteered to draft a letter and send it to the appropriate people.

E17.52.98.2 - Piezo Sensor (Bill McCall, Chairman)

Piezo sensor task group chairmain, Bill McCall was unable to attend the June, 2000 meetings due to prior commitments. However, Bill was able to send a rough draft of the yet to be titled practice for using and installing piezo sensors (see Attachment 4 for details). During the June, 2000 meetings, subcommittee members decided that the practice for using and installing piezo sensors needs to include a qualitative statement addressing temperature and speed sensitivity issues.
E17.52.98.3 - Revamp of E1318 (Perry Kent, Chairman)

The revision of "Standard Specification for Highway Weigh-in-Motion (WIM) Systems with User Requirements and Test Method" was submitted for ballot during the April-May 2000 balloting process. Although there were no negatives to stop this revision from being approved, numerous comments were received. The comments were addressed and Dr. Clyde Lee will make changes accordingly. Many of the changes were not simple editorial changes, rather they were changes that will significantly change the use of the standard, thus the next version of the revision will need to be reballoted. Plans are to submit this next revision during the next balloting process. The following are some of the items that were discussed (see Attachment 2 for complete list of comments):

  • Add Class 14 — User Defined and Class 15 — Not Classified categories to Table 3;
  • Delete entire 5.13.1 section for testing the uniformity of the weigh pad during Type testing. However, weigh pad uniformity will still be tested during onsite testing by appropriate method;
  • In section 6.3 leave original "shall" that was striked through twice in the revised document;
  • In the last sentence of section 7.1.2 there is a reference in parenthese to trucks hauling undulant liquid loads. The subcommitte suggested that a statement be added to not allow undulant liquid loads; and
  • In section 7.5 a suggestion was made to add a statement to allow the vendors to calibrate their WIM system by the specified method in E1318 or by a vendor specified procedure that is in agreement with the state.

Another important item discussed at the June 2000 meetings was the concern of the LTPP Traffic Expert Task Group (ETG) that piezo WIM systems may not meet the criteria for a Type I system due to the piezo sensors’ temperature variability. The ETG’s suggestion was to include a provision for testing the system at different temperatures in the onsite testing portion of E1318. Subcommittee members expressed concern with adding this type of provision for the onsite testing of E1318 namely because the cost of compliance with this type of testing would be prohibitive for most sites and thus the temperature variability testing will more than likely not be performed.

Also, subcommittee members suggested that the temperature variability of the piezo sensor needs to be addressed in a standard specification pertaining to this sensor. Therefore, all agreed that this type of provision will be considered for inclusion in the yet to be developed specification for piezo sensors.

NEW BUSINESS

Perry Kent is now the official Vice-chairman of Group V. However, Perry assured members that he will remain an active member of E17.52 regardless of his new position. Congratulations to Perry!

Another new business item was brought up by Dan Smith about the circulation of the minutes for subcommittees in all of E17 and possibly all of ASTM. Namely, a paper copy of the minutes will no longer be sent by ASTM, rather an electronic copy of the minutes will be posted on the ASTM web site to be accessed by all members. This means that all attachments in order to be posted need to be in electronic format, as well.

Another new business item discussed was the possibility of working with Amiri Farideh of MN DOT and Erik Minge of SRF Consulting Group, Inc. to develop standards for testing non-intrusive vehicle detectors. Erik Minge has expressed interest in attending the next E17.52 subcommittee meeting to present to the group what they have done for MN DOT in terms of developing test methods for non-intrusive vehicle detection technology.

NEXT MEETING

December 3-6, 2000 Orlando, FL

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was adjourned at 12:00 Noon


ATTACHMENT #2

COMMENTS (formal and informal) ON BALLOTED ITEMS FROM:

  • Dr. Clyde E. Lee (Revision E1442-93)
  • Eric E. Harm (Revision E1318-94, Iem No. 10)
  • Ed Duffy and Mulder Brown (informal comments on revision of E1318-94)
  • Ryan Gidluck (Revision E1318-94)
  • O. Picozzi (Revision E1318-94)
  • Martin Robotham of PEEK Traffic (Revision E1318-94)
  • William D. Paterson (Road Tube Specification and Revision E1318-94)
  • James L. Burchett (Revision E1442-93)
  • Garry Chegwidden (Revision E1442-93)
  • Jerry Legg (Road Tube Specification)

Last Modified: March 20, 2007

Maintained by: traffic@nmsu.edu

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