Road construction is, in principle, relatively straightforward. Hot asphalt is produced at the factory, transported by truck, and laid on site within a short time window, usually less than thirty minutes, before it cools and becomes unusable.
In the past, however, the industry has been exposed to fraud and asphalt theft. When issues arose, the affected party often struggled to prove the loss due to the lack of reliable delivery evidence.
This article explores how the French road construction sector addressed these issues by embedding verifiable trust mechanisms directly into its delivery processes.
Who is AQP – Association Qualité Pesage?
Behind the apparent simplicity of road construction processes lies a tightly coordinated system. Each delivery involves several parties who must work in sync, often under contractual pressure. These typically include the road constructor, the asphalt factory, the truck driver, and sometimes partner competitors. It is common for a contractor to source asphalt from a competitor’s plant if it is closer to the construction site and better suited to the time constraint.
Creation of the NF P 98-750 standard
As cases of asphalt theft increased, the French industry introduced an end-to-end trust framework through AQP (Association Qualité Pesage). This framework included specific requirements for weighing software, regular audits, and the printing of weighbridge tickets on specific paper using dedicated printers. These requirements were formalised under the NF P 98-750 AFNOR standard.
Restoring trust through standardisation
AQP defines how weighbridge and delivery tickets must be issued, numbered, stored, and retained over time. Its objective is to guarantee trust and traceability for asphalt deliveries, in order to limit fraud and support audits and disputes.
Why weighbridge special paper tickets became the standard
In road construction, weighbridge tickets are relied upon as official proof to
- confirm delivered quantities,
- validate invoices,
- respond to audits and inspections,
- resolve disputes between producers, transporters, and construction companies.
Because these weighbridge tickets carry direct financial and contractual consequences, their reliability is central to the delivery chain.
For this reason, the industry has historically relied on specific paper-based tickets. Paper was considered the safest way to ensure authenticity, integrity, and long-term retention, typically for a three-year period.
How paper evidence created operational constraints
While compliant with AQP requirements, paper processes created significant constraints for asphalt producers. They relied on dedicated dot-matrix printers that were often unreliable and costly to maintain, required the management of specific paper stocks, and caused delays when failures forced manual procedures.
Drivers were also required to leave their trucks to collect tickets, increasing safety risks. In addition, physical archiving over several years made document retrieval slow and inefficient.
These constraints were accepted as the cost of preserving trust.
The need to move to digital
Over time, digitisation became necessary to reduce these operational constraints. However, it could only be adopted if the same level of trust, transparency, and traceability as paper-based processes was preserved.
The current situation and the role of a trusted third party
Evidency was appointed as a Qualified Trust Service Provider (QTSP) to support the transition to digital while preserving evidential reliability. The weighing operation itself remained unchanged. The evolution only concerned the issuance of the weighbridge ticket, which became digital and was systematically timestamped, electronically sealed, and archived.
This approach ensures that each ticket remains traceable and tamperproof, and removes the needs for manual handling, reliance on specific printers and paper. It also simplifies day-to-day operations and significantly improves access to archived records, both during operations and when documents need to be retrieved later for audits or reviews.
How each digital weighbridge ticket is processed. Step by step explanation
For each weighbridge ticket, the process follows a fixed and fully automated sequence:
- The ticket is generated as a PDF by the weighing software.
- It is automatically sent via API to the Trust Service platform.
- The ticket is then:
- assigned a unique, sequential AQP-compliant serial number,
- electronically timestamped and sealed,
- marked with a visible statement reading “certified compliant with NF P 98-750”
- enriched with a QR code, allowing anyone to download the certified ticket, and verify its authenticity using a smartphone.
- The certified ticket is securely archived for the regulatory retention period (usually 3 years).
The driver can the choose to receive the ticket either via SMS, email, or a receipt-style printout from a kiosk printer near the weighbridge.
The entire process is fully automated and completed in a few seconds.
The specifics of a centralised access via a dedicated portal
In addition to individual access via QR code or link, all certified tickets are available through a secure, dedicated online portal. This not only allows controller to access and verify the documents. It also contributes to creating trust between the road constructor, the asphalt factory, the truck driver, and the client.
Authorised users can:
- consult all archived tickets
- search tickets by date, site, weighbridge, client, haulier, or ticket number
- download tickets for audits, inspections, disputes, or invoicing
- access historical data instantly
Operational outcomes beyond fraud prevention
While AQP’s primary objective is fraud prevention, digitising the process delivers additional operational benefits. Delays are reduced and the delivery chain operates more smoothly.
On-site factory teams are freed from delivery slip handling and physical archiving. Truck drivers no longer need to walk through the factory to collect paper tickets, improving both efficiency and safety. Certified tickets are available instantly through the digital portal, simplifying audits, inspections, and internal reviews.
From an evidential perspective, digital weighbridge tickets remain tamper-proof. They cannot be altered, duplicated, or substituted without detection.
Ultimately, the creation of AQP and its transition to digital have reinforced trust between factories, contractors, and clients, all of whom rely on the same certified record as a single point of reference.
Conclusion
This use case shows that moving from paper to digital in road construction is only viable if trust in delivery documents is preserved and verifiable by all parties.
When that condition is met, digitisation becomes a source of efficiency, improved safety on site, faster access to records, and stronger auditability, rather than a new point of friction.
While developed within the French AQP framework, the approach is directly relevant to the UK road construction market, where similar delivery constraints, multi-party coordination, and evidential requirements apply.
More broadly, the same logic extends to other heavy industries that still depend on paper-based delivery records. Sectors such as waste and recycling, energy and natural resources, agriculture and agri-food commodities, mining, and chemicals face comparable risks around document reliability. In each case, the transition to digital can only succeed if trust is not assumed, but built into the process and independently verifiable.
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