Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has revealed that it has begun using drones to carry out field inspections of heavy trucks.
Mohammed Nabhan, director of Licensing Activities Monitoring, Licensing Agency, RTA, explained that the inspection teams have conducted more than 300 inspections and identified 48 offences since 2020.
“We had identified all the various cases of heavy vehicles that can be inspected using drones. This creative national initiative utilises artificial intelligence technologies onboard drones to carry out inspections of trucks. RTA has trained nine officials, who were accredited by the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, to act as Drone Operators,” said Nabhan.
He added that the drone inspections had improved the operational efficiency of field inspections of heavy vehicles and eased the difficulties encountered by inspectors when inspecting parts of heavy vehicles, which are normally difficult to access.
“Since we started using drones in heavy vehicle inspections last year, we have conducted more than 300 inspections, recording 580 flying minutes and resulting in reporting 48 offences.”
“The use of drones in field inspections of heavy vehicles reduces the vulnerability of inspectors to incidents associated with the climbing onto the vehicle to inspect the upper areas and verify the technical faults and aspects related to shipping and loading instructions to detect any violations related to cargo stipulations.
“The main offences listed in this regard are unlicensed protruding cargo, failure to cover the cargo as per the approved stipulations, use of the heavy vehicle in loading and transporting cargo not designated to that type of vehicles, failure to distribute the cargo properly, failure to secure the cargo or loading the cargo in a way that constitutes risks to others or damages the road, monitor trucks with technical faults (such as body erosion), and report trucks avoiding inspection points,” he concluded.
