Skip to main content

Tattile part of Genoa bridge warning system 

WiM sensor and camera combination designed to prevent repeat of 2018's fatal collapse
By Adam Hill September 7, 2020 Read time: 2 mins
Tattile's cameras will help Genoa's San Giorgio bridge to remain safe for all users

Italian camera specialist Tattile has installed four cameras on Genoa's new San Giorgio Bridge as part of an improved structural monitoring system.

The old Morandi Bridge collapsed in August 2018, killing 43 people.

The new construction includes sensors beneath the platform to detect movements on the road deck, along with the Tattile Vega Basic cameras mounted above the bridge to monitor traffic flow and detect vehicle number plates. 

The idea is that this combination creates an early warning system regarding the bridge's stability and can be used to plan infrastructure maintenance.

The Tattile cameras are connected to a Weigh in Motion system designed by iWIM, which detects and records axle and gross weight of vehicles as they pass over a sensor integrated in durable steel plates on the road surface.

Data from the sensors and cameras is sent to a central server to give a clear picture of what is happening on the bridge at any time. 

Tattile says that while the old bridge was equipped with basic motion sensors under the road to detect movement of the deck, they were not able to trace the causes of the movements.  

"By integrating WiM technology with the combination of Tattile Vega Basic cameras on the new San Giorgio it is now possible to correlate structural deformations to the weight that weighs on the infrastructure, and to trace the weight load caused by individual vehicles crossing it," the company concludes.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Major upgrade for Mississippi bridges
    September 3, 2013
    Four major bridges over the lower Mississippi are to get intelligent transportation systems (ITS) upgrades, thanks to a US$10 million grant from the US Department of Transportation TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) fund. The project will expand existing ITS systems in each of the three states to complement previous state and private investments.
  • Sony's AI sensors in Rome smart city trial
    May 28, 2021
    Smart city project run by Envision will use Sony's IMX500 image sensors with AI processing
  • The benefits of combining enforcement and traffic management
    February 27, 2013
    Jason Barnes considers how combining enforcement equipment with other traffic management technologies might benefit our future – if only the will were really in place to do so. During the ITS World Congress in Vienna in October last year, Navtech Radar and Vysion­ics ITS announced a strategic partnership that would combine the expertise of Navtech in millimetre-wave wide-area surveillance technology with Vysionics’ machine vision-based automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) and average speed measurement
  • Automating enforcement of environmental zones
    July 27, 2012
    Amsterdam City Council has chosen to move away from manual enforcement of its environmental zone, which is intended to keep highly polluting goods vehicles out of the city centre, and is installing an automated, ANPR-based system. The signs are not much to look at: white with a red circle and the all-important word Milieuzone ('Environmental zone'). But these signs mean that Amsterdam's city centre is strictly off-limits to polluting goods traffic. At the moment compliance is monitored by special wardens wh