Ontario will become the second province to implement scale bypass technology from Drivewyze and will also spend more than $8 million over the next 10 years to pre-screen trucks at weigh stations.

The announcements were made by Ontario Transport Minister Jeff Yurek at the Rosedale Transport location in London. He was accompanied by representatives from Drivewyze, the Ontario Trucking Association (OTA), the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada (PMTC), and others from the trucking industry. The use of technology to streamline inspections will help enforcement officers zero in on high-risk trucks, while bringing cost and time savings to compliant carriers, Yurek said.

Drivewyze pre-clearance is already used at more than 700 sites in 42 states and now two provinces, the other being Alberta. The service is integrated with about a dozen telematics and electronic logging device (ELD) providers, which serve as resellers, but it can also be operated using a standalone app on Apple or Android devices. It will cost operators about $14 per month for each truck, which, according to Doug Johnson, vice-president of marketing with Drivewyze, is generally recouped through just one scale bypass. The savings come from increased productivity from not having to stop, and the conservation of extra fuel required to slow the truck down, crawl through the scale, and then return to highway speed.

As of March 1, any fleet with a CVOR – those plated in Ontario and from the U.S. with authority to operate here – will be able to enroll. Their bypass frequency will depend on their CVOR record. Every operator who’s a member will be subject to random inspections, but Johnson said a well-run fleet can expect to bypass weigh stations about 90% of the time.

In addition to pre-clearance, the province announced a major investment to test pre-screening at four Ontario weigh stations: Lancaster, Whitby/Oshawa, Putnam South, and Vineland. This will incorporate Intelligent Imaging System (IIS) technology incorporating thermal imaging, dangerous goods placard reading, CVSA sticker reading, and US DoT number reading, to determine whether or not a truck approaching the scale should be called in for inspection.