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Publication Details

Guide to LTPP Traffic Data Collection and Processing General Interest: provides practical guidance to engineers responsible for the day-to-day design, construction, rehabilitation, maintenance, and management of pavements. Research/Reference: useful for researchers doing further work in the pavement area as well as those developing improved testing and design procedures. Includes documents of historical value.

Primary Topic: Traffic

Description: This document supersedes Chapter 4: Traffic Data Collection of the Data Collection Guide1 developed by the Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP). Data sheets and instructions for submitting traffic data for test sections, as well as the protocols for calibrating traffic data collection equipment, are included in this document. These guidelines reflect the revised traffic data collection plan developed for the Long Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) project, as well as other minor changes that have occurred since Chapter 4 was last produced in 1993.

Traffic data is required within the LTPP study in order to provide an independent measure of the loads that are applied to the individual pavement sections being studied. The basic goal of the data collection effort is to provide researchers with axle load distributions that represent the loading history for each test section. This means actively measuring loads being applied to test section pavements, while also providing the best possible estimates of loads that these pavements experienced prior to the start of the LTPP traffic monitoring efforts.

The goal of this report is to document the process and procedures used by LTPP to collect and store the traffic data used to estimate pavement loadings. This first section of this report provides introductory material on the traffic data collection process, including an outline of how data flows through the system and an introduction to terms used throughout this report. Section 2 covers the principles of traffic data collection regarding data manipulation, site-specific data, and codes for data availability and site location. The traffic data collection plan is presented in Section 3. Section 4 presents LTPP's instructions for the selection, location, installation and calibration of traffic data collection equipment. Section 5 details the submittal formats for traffic monitoring data. Section 6 presents the forms and instructions for submitting monitored traffic data. Appendix A discusses the submittal of historical traffic data.

FHWA Publication Number:

Publication Year: 2001

Document Links: PDF (file size: 0.3 mb)



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Updated: 04/11/2022
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