Traffic data collection

Lecture notes in Transportation Systems Engineering

Overview
Unlike many other disciplines of the engineering,
the situations that are interesting to a traffic
engineer cannot be reproduced in a laboratory.
Even if road and vehicles could be set up in large
laboratories, it is impossible to simulate the
behavior of drivers in the laboratory. Therefore,
traffic stream characteristics need to be collected
only from the field. There are several methods of
data collection depending on the need of the study
and some important ones are described in this
chapter.
Data requirements
The most important traffic characteristics to be
collected from the field includes sped, travel time,
flow and density. Some cases, spacing and
headway are directly measured. In addition, the
occupancy, ie percentage of time a point on the
road is occupied by vehicles is also of interest. The
measurement procedures can be classified based
on the geographical extent of the survey into five
categories: (a) measurement at point on the road,
(b) measurement over a short section of the road
(less than 500 metres) (c) measurement over a
length of the road (more than about 500 metres)
(d) wide area samples obtained from number of
locations, and (e) the use of an observer moving in
the traffic stream. In each category, numerous
data collection are there. However, important and
basic methods will be discussed.
Measurements at a point
The most important point measurement is the
vehicle volume count. Data can be collected
manually or automatically. In manual method, the
observer will stand at the point of interest and
count the vehicles with the help of hand tallies.
Normally, data will be collected for short interval of
5 minutes or 15 minutes etc. and for each types of
vehicles like cars, two wheelers, three wheelers,
LCV, HCV, multi axle trucks, nonmotorised traffic
like bullock cart, hand cart etc. From the flow data,
flow and headway can be derived.

Modern methods include the use of inductive loop

detector, video camera, and many other
technologies. These methods helps to collect
accurate information for long duration. In video
cameras, data is collected from the field and is
then analyzed in the lab for obtaining results.
Radars and microwave detectors are used to obtain
the speed of a vehicle at a point. Since no length is
involved, density cannot be obtained by measuring
at a point.
Measurements over short section
The main objective of this study is to find the spot
speed of vehicles. Manual methods include the use
of enoscope. In this method a base length of about
30-90 metres is marked on the road. Enoscope is
placed at one end and observer will stand at the
other end. He could see the vehicle passing the
farther end through enoscope and starts the stop
watch. Then he stops the stop watch when the
vehicle passes in front of him. The working of the
enoscope is shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: Illustration of measurement over short section using enoscope

An alternative method is to use pressure contact

tube which gives a pressure signal when vehicle
moves at either end. Another most widely used
method is inductive loop detector which works on
the principle of magnetic inductance. Road will be
cut and a small magnetic loop is placed. When the
metallic content in the vehicle passes over it, a
signal will be generated and the count of the
vehicle can be found automatically. The advantage
of this detector is that the counts can be obtained
throughout the life time of the road. However,
chances of errors are possible because noise
signals may be generated due to heavy vehicle
passing adjacent lanes. When dual loops are used
and if the spacing between them is known then
speed also can be calculated in addition to the
vehicle cost.
Measurements over long section
This is normally used to obtain variations in speed
over a stretch of road. Usually the stretch will be
having a length more than 500 metres. We can
also get density. Most traditional method uses
aerial photography. From a single frame, density
can be measured, but not speed or volumes. In
time lapse photography, several frames are
available. If several frames are obtained over short
time intervals, speeds can be measured from the
distance covered between the two frames and time
interval between them.
Moving observer method for stream measurement
Determination of any of the two parameters of the
traffic flow will provide the third one by the
equation . Moving observer method is the
most commonly used method to get the
relationship between the fundamental stream
characteristics. In this method, the observer
moves in the traffic stream unlike all other
previous methods.

Consider a stream of vehicles moving in the north

bound direction. Two different cases of motion can
be considered. The first case considers the traffic
stream to be moving and the observer to be
stationary.

Figure 2: Illustration of moving observer method

If is the number of vehicles overtaking the
observer during a period, , then flow is , or
(1)

The second case assumes that the stream is

stationary and the observer moves with speed .
If is the number of vehicles overtaken by
observer over a length , then by definition,
density is , or
(2)

or
(3)

where is the speed of the observer and is the

time taken for the observer to cover the road
stretch. Now consider the case when the observer
is moving within the stream. In that case
vehicles will overtake the observer and vehicles
will be overtaken by the observer in the test
vehicle. Let the difference is given by - ,
then from equation 1 and equation 3,
(4)

This equation is the basic equation of moving

observer method, which relates to the counts
, and that can be obtained from the test.
However, we have two unknowns, and , but
only one equation. For generating another
equation, the test vehicle is run twice once with
the traffic stream and another one against traffic
stream, i.e.
(5)

(6)

where, denotes against and with traffic flow. It

may be noted that the sign of equation 6 is
negative, because test vehicle moving in the
opposite direction can be considered as a case
when the test vehicle is moving in the stream with
negative velocity. Further, in this case, all the
vehicles will be overtaking, since it is moving with
negative speed. In other words, when the test
vehicle moves in the opposite direction, the
observer simply counts the number of vehicles in
the opposite direction. Adding equation 5 and 6,
we will get the first parameter of the stream,
namely the flow(q) as:
(7)

Now calculating space mean speed from

equation 5,
If is the mean stream speed, then average travel

time is given by . Therefore,

Rewriting the above equation, we get the second

parameter of the traffic flow, namely the mean
speed and can be written as,

(8)

Thus two parameters of the stream can be

determined. Knowing the two parameters the third
parameter of traffic flow density ( ) can be found
out as
(9)

For increase accuracy and reliability, the test is

performed a number of times and the average
results are to be taken.
Example 1
The length of a road stretch used for conducting
the moving observer test is 0.5 km and the speed
with which the test vehicle moved is 20 km/hr.
Given that the number of vehicles encountered in
the stream while the test vehicle was moving
against the traffic stream is 107, number of
vehicles that had overtaken the test vehicle is 10,
and the number of vehicles overtaken by the test
vehicle is 74, find the flow, density and average
speed of the stream.
Solution
Time taken by the test vehicle to reach the other
end of the stream while it is moving along with the
traffic is = 0.025 hr Time taken by the
observer to reach the other end of the stream
while it is moving against the traffic is =

0.025 hr Flow is given by equation, q = =

860 veh/hr Stream speed can be found out from
equation = 5 km/hr Density can be
found out from equation as k = = 172veh/km
Example 2
The data from four moving observer test methods
are shown in the table. Column 1 gives the sample
number, column 2 gives the number of vehicles
moving against the stream, column 3 gives the
number of vehicles that had overtaken the test
vehicle, and last column gives the number of
vehicles overtaken by the test vehicle. Find the
three fundamental stream parameters for each set
of data. Also plot the fundamental diagrams of
traffic flow.
Sample no. 1 2 3

1 107 10 74

2 113 25 41

3 30 15 5

4 79 18 9

Solution
Sample no.

1 107 10 74 -64 0.025 0.025 860 5.03 171

2 113 25 41 -16 0.025 0.025 1940 15.04 129

3 30 15 5 10 0.025 0.025 800 40 20

4 79 18 9 9 0.025 0.025 1760 25.14 70

From the calculated values of flow, density and

speed, the three fundamental diagrams can be
plotted as shown in figure 3.
 Figure 3: Fundamental diagrams of traffic flow

Summary
Traffic engineering studies differ from other studies
in the fact that they require extensive data from
the field which cannot be exactly created in any
laboratory. Speed data are collected from
measurements at a point or over a short section or
over an area. Traffic flow data are collected at a
point. Moving observer method is one in which
both speed and traffic flow data are obtained by a
single experiment.
Problems
1. In the moving observer experiment, if the density is k, speed of the observer

is , length of the test stretch is , is the time taken by the observer to

cover the road stretch, the number of vehicles overtaken by the observer
is given by,
 1.

2.

3.

4.
2. If the length of the road stretch taken for conducting moving observer
experiment is 0.4 km, time taken by the observer to move with the traffic is
5 seconds, number of vehicles moving with the test vehicle in the same
direction is 10, flow is 10 veh/sec, find the mean speed.
1. 50 m/s
2. 100 m/s
3. 150 m/s
4. 200 m/s

Solutions
1. In the moving observer experiment, if the density is k, speed of the observer

is , length of the test stretch is , is the time taken by the observer to

cover the road stretch, the number of vehicles overtaken by the observer
is given by,

1.

2.

3.

4.
2. If the length of the road stretch taken for conducting moving observer
experiment is 0.4 km, time taken by the observer to move with the traffic is
5 seconds, number of vehicles moving with the test vehicle in the same
direction is 10, flow is 10 veh/sec, find the mean speed.
1. 50 m/s

2. 100 m/s
3. 150 m/s
4. 200 m/s
Solution: Given that l=0.4 km, =5seconds, =10,q=10 veh/sec,

substituting in equation, =100m/s.