Oklahoma has four ports of entry, a fifth is under construction and a sixth is planned, and several weigh stations are in operation, too, Oklahoma Department of Transportation records reflect.
Each port of entry (POE) is much larger than a weigh station and is located near state borders, said Brenda Perry Clark of ODOT’s Strategic Communications Division. POEs are 4,000 square-foot buildings with a 4,000 square-foot inspection bay and pit where Department of Public Safety employees perform truck inspections, she said.
“Also at the POE is all of our E-screening technology,” she added. That includes mainline WIMs (weigh in motion) technology (strips in the pavement that weigh trucks without them having to stop), motor vehicle license plate readers, U.S. Department of Transportation cameras that “capture DOT numbers” on trucks, and over-height sensors.
All of the images are processed through a localized server and report credential/weight violations, Ms. Clark said. “The report/bypass sort decision is utilized with the technology to bring in only the ‘bad’ trucks,” she said. “So if you’re essentially in compliance, then you would get the bypass.”
Also at all four POEs is a Tire Anomaly Classification System, which looks for trucks with flat or underinflated tires and “has them brought into the station to deal with,” Clark said.
At the Kay County port of entry on Interstate 35 “we also have purchased a thermal brake system which tells us if a truck’s brakes are too hot or too cold,” she said.
Weigh stations, in the state’s interior, utilize only a static (stationary) scale,” Ms. Clark said. “Basically they’re focusing on the weight of trucks, but can manually perform screening while a truck is sitting on the scale.”
A weigh station encompasses approximately 200 square feet and “usually only a couple of Oklahoma Corporation Commission employees staff them,” she said.
In comparison, ports of entry are staffed by 8 to 10 OCC officers and 2 to 4 DPS inspectors, and are equipped with full bathrooms for the drivers, snack machines, etc., she said.
In short, Ms. Clark said, POEs are much larger and utilize “a lot of technology.” In addition, POEs are open 18 to 20 hours per day, whereas simple weigh stations are in operation 10 hours a day.
POE, Weigh Station locations in Oklahoma
• A port of entry on northbound Interstate 35 in Love County, near mile marker 12 between Thackerville and Marietta, was constructed at a cost of $14,229,520 and opened four and a half years ago.
• A POE on eastbound Interstate 40 near Erick, in Beckham County, was constructed nine years ago at a cost of $13,085,364.
• A POE on westbound Interstate 40 near Roland in Sequoyah County was built at a cost of $13,236,902 and opened six years ago.
• The POE on southbound Interstate 35 a mile south of the Kansas state line in Kay County was the first new port of entry in Oklahoma, ODOT reported, and opened for operation nine years ago at a cost of $11,670,937.
An older style weigh station on southbound I-35 near Tonkawa was closed because of its proximity to the POE. The northbound Tonkawa station, housed in an older 1960s-style building, is still operated occasionally using the static scale only.
• A new port of entry is under construction on US-69/75 just north of SH-91 near Colbert, in Bryan County. A weigh station is being built on northbound US-69/75, and a virtual weigh station is being installed in the southbound lanes to weigh trucks in motion.
An $18 million contract for construction of the POE was approved by the Oklahoma Transportation Commission in February and work started in June. Completion of the building is projected for September 2022, and the technology is expected to be installed and in operation by early 2023, ODOT officials reported.
• A future port of entry is proposed for northbound US-271 in Choctaw County near the Texas state line. The facility has been designed and will be constructed when funds are available and when the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) and the Department of Public Safety (DPS) have adequate personnel to staff the operation.
• A new weigh station in the Panhandle, in Cimarron County near the interchange of US-287 and US-412/US-64 in Boise City, was constructed at a cost of $3,784,116 and began operation in November 2018.
• Weigh stations were established decades ago in the northbound and southbound lanes of I-35 near Davis in Murray County; those facilities were built when the interstate highway was constructed in the 1960s, ODOT officials guesstimate. However, only the southbound station is in operation now, and it is slated to receive a new triple platform hydraulic scale in January 2022 at a cost of $350,000, ODOT reported.
• Older style weigh stations on eastbound and westbound I-40 in Canadian County, between Yukon and El Reno, were replaced with modular buildings in 2011 at a cost of $250,000 each. The eastbound scale was replaced with a triple platform hydraulic scale in 2018 at a cost of $300,000.
ODOT builds, DPS/OCC staff Ports of Entry
ODOT is responsible for the design, construction and maintenance of ports of entry, while the OCC and the DPS operate the facilities and perform the truck inspections.
Oklahoma has been investing in POEs because many of the old weigh stations “were in ruins and out of service, and those that were in service were woefully inadequate,” said Matt Skinner, the Corporation Commission’s public information manager. Furthermore, the weigh station “were not well placed in terms of today’s truck traffic flow, as they predated most of the interstate highway system,” he said. “It was a simple matter for a truck to avoid them.”
The state’s ports of entry are strategically placed and employ modern technology that “allows for the process of thousands of trucks a day without many even having to stop,” Skinner said. Many items are checked for, he said; weight and insurance “are just two.”
The POEs also have inspection bays where the DPS can perform safety inspections of trucks. “Unlike the old weigh stations, which could handle only a few trucks without them getting backed up on the highway, the ports of entry have plenty of room, including parking, and can handle huge numbers.”
Approximately 4.4 million trucks were processed through Oklahoma’s POEs in Fiscal Year 2021, Corporation Commission records show.