Indiana Project to Track License Plates of Overweight Trucks

Indiana highway officials are launching a pilot project to track unpermitted overweight vehicles that can damage highways and bridges.

The Indiana Department of Transportation will install license plate-tracking technology along Interstate 94 in northern Indiana’s LaPorte County this year to track overnight vehicles.

INDOT spokesman Scott Manning says a camera system will work in tandem with one of about a dozen “weight-in-motion” sensors embedded in the asphalt.

If that works, the technology could be installed along other Indiana highways.

The Journal & Courier reports INDOT’s tracking effort comes after an overweight semi-trailer damaged Interstate 65’s southbound Wildcat Creek bridge near Lafayette last summer.

That bridge was damaged a month before construction work along I-65 caused the northbound Wildcat Creek bridge to sink several inches, prompting a month-long emergency closure.