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THE ROAD TO BETTER
SAFETY
Long before cell phones,
many truckers on BC’s
northern logging roads
used two-way radios to
conduct their daily
operations as well as
for road safety.
A
pilot program has been
initiated in the South
Peace region of BC to
reduce radio
interference, and
enhance road safety with
truckers, and the
lessons learned are now
being implemented.
In the Beginning
Long
before cell phones, many
truckers on BC’s
northern logging roads
used two-way radios to
conduct their daily
operations as well as
for road safety. In
those days there were
not as many
radio-equipped trucks,
as the radios were bulky
and expensive. In fact,
it was mostly only the
larger companies that
used them and each radio
was capable of only a
few crystal-controlled
channels.
Frequency
Congestion
In
the last 30 years,
however, times have
changed greatly. Not
only are there more
roads and trucks, the
radios themselves have
become less expensive
and each one can hold a
vast amount of channels.
This led to an increase
in interference problems
not only within other
parts of BC, but also
anywhere else the trucks
traveled, such as into
Alberta.
 So
in the last ten years,
in an effort to not only
reduce the amount of
interference, but also
to enhance road safety,
the number of
frequencies assigned to
resource use were
reduced and consolidated
which allowed for better
channel management.
These methods did work
to some extent, but more
work still needed to be
done to address ongoing
safety and frequency
management concerns as
the number of users
continued to grow.
The Pilot
Program
To
better address the
issue, a pilot program
was introduced in the
South Peace area of B.C.
starting in 2009 to see
if the situation could
be handled more
effectively. Among the
parties involved were
the BC Ministry of
Forests, Lands and
Natural Resource
Operations,
FPInnovations, the BC
Forest Safety Council,
Industry Canada, and the
North East Road Safety
Committee, with its
membership of the many
oil and gas, forestry
and mining companies
operating in the Peace
area of BC Special
recognition also goes to
the numerous companies,
radio equipment
suppliers, contractors,
and recreational
resource road users
whose willingness to
participate in the pilot
and whose valuable
feedback helped to shape
the final protocols to
be implemented province
wide.
Three
main components were
targeted in the program:
1 – Standardized
road signs – these
indicate what radio
channel to use
2 –
Standardized calling
procedures – This
relates the proper radio
“lingo”
3 – And
finally, a more
effective use of
existing radio channels.
The pilot project
saw the first two
aspects successfully
implemented. However
effective two-way radio
usage was still lacking
due to some of the
technical complexities
involved.
In
the pilot, 28
frequencies were used,
along with what is known
as “tones”. Each
frequency could
therefore be split into
three “channels” by
assigning three separate
tones to each frequency.
In theory, if properly
used in the field, this
meant that 84 channels
could be assigned to a
region, keeping
unrelated radio
conversations separate
from each other.
Safety Problems
Being Addressed
There
were some problems
identified during the
pilot program due to the
complexity in the
technical system design;
so a simpler approach is
being implemented in the
South Peace that will be
incrementally rolled out
across BC in the years
to come.
Courtesy of
Logging and Samill
Journal - Forestnet.com.
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