The Alberta Motor Transport Association’s (AMTA) “Partners in Compliance” or “PIC” motor carriers can now receive weigh station bypass exclusively through the Drivewyze PreClear service at 23 vehicle inspection site locations in Canada’s Alberta province.
With the upcoming addition of a station at Atmore, and at 23 mobile sites, there will be a total of 48 sites located on several key provincial and Trans-Canada routes throughout Alberta.
The Drivewyze PreClear bypass service became operational in Alberta this April and marks the Edmonton-based company’s debut in Canada. Drivewyze already provides bypass services in 40 states, delivering the largest weigh station bypass service in the U.S.
The AMTA’s PIC program is a partnership with Alberta Transportation Ministry and the commercial vehicle enforcement branch. To achieve PIC membership, motor carriers must undergo a successful national safety code audit, achieve certification, and complete quarterly safety reports.
“The expansion of our bypass service into Alberta represents an important next step in the continued expansion of North America’s largest bypass service network,” noted Brian Heath, president and CEO of Drivewyze, in a statement. “Alberta PIC members no longer have to maintain dated transponder technology, which can get damaged or lost.”
Heath said the advantage of a weigh station bypass service for compliant motor carriers is that their trucks don’t always need to pull in to open weigh stations. Instead, only small, random samplings of member trucks need to pull in – saving them time and money.
In the month of April alone, more than 2,000 participating PIC member trucks received almost 15,000 weigh station bypasses from Drivewyze in Alberta. Based on its own studies of average weigh station pull ins, Drivewyze estimates that those bypasses represent a savings of over 950 hours in driving time and about $200,000 in savings from fuel and operational costs for Alberta’s trucking industry as whole.
Steve Callahan, chief of the Alberta’s commercial vehicle enforcement branch, added in a statement that this bypass service will help his enforcement officers be more efficient, allowing them to focus their attention on those carriers needing the extra attention.
“The addition of Drivewyze will help our commercial vehicle inspection officers automate processing of PIC members, better focus their resources on manual inspections, and lower the volume of trucks entering weigh stations,” he said. “As a result, they’ll be better able to deal with ever-increasing truck traffic in the province.”
