Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS)

WORK ORDER NUMBER BAT-03-004

Highway Performance Monitoring System
Traffic Data for High-Volume Routes: Best Practices and Guidelines

Final Report

Prepared by:

Office of Highway Policy Information
Federal Highway Administration
U.S. Department of Transportation
Washington, D.C.

Principal Authors

Dr. Edward Fekpe, PEng.
Mr. Deepak Gopalakrishna
Dr. Dan Middleton (TTI)

September 8, 2004

Disclaimer

This report is a work prepared for the United States Government by Battelle. In no event shall either the United States Government or Battelle have any responsibility or liability for any consequences of any use, misuse, inability to use, or reliance on the information contained herein, nor does either warrant or otherwise represent in any way the accuracy, adequacy, efficacy, or applicability of the contents hereof. The United States Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. Trade or manufacturers' names appear herein only because they are considered essential to the purpose of the document.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support and guidance of Mr. Fred Orloski of the Office of Highway Policy Information, Federal Highway Administration throughout this project. The authors would also like to thank Mr. Harshad Desai and Mr. Jeff Patten of the Office of Highway Policy Information, Federal Highway Administration for their review comments on the draft report.

The authors also acknowledge the participation and assistance of the following representatives of the state Departments of Transportation for participating and providing valuable inputs during the interviews.

The project team members are:

Dr. Edward Fekpe, Principal Investigator, (Battelle)
Mr. Deepak Gopalakrishna (Battelle)
Dr. Dan Middleton (Texas Transportation Institute)
Mr. Shawn Turner (Texas Transportation Institute

Table of Contents

• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• LIST OF ACRONYMS
• EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
  • Introduction
  • Information Sources
  • Summary of Interview Results
  • Best or Common Practices
  • Guidelines for Data Collection for High-Volume Routes
  • Concluding Remarks
• 1.0 Introduction
  • 1.1 Background
  • 1.2 Project Objectives
  • 1.3 Organization of Report
• 2.0 Traffic Monitoring on High-volume Roads
  • 2.1 Information Gathering
    • 2.1.1 Literature Review
    • 2.1.2 Interviews with State DOTs
  • 2.2 Traffic Monitoring State-of-the-Practice
    • 2.2.1 HPMS Data Collection
    • 2.2.2 High-volume Routes
    • 2.2.3 Summary of Interview Findings
  • 2.3 Issues Associated with Data Collection on High-volume Routes
    • 2.3.1 Safety of Traffic Personnel
    • 2.3.2 Stop-and-Go Traffic
    • 2.3.3 Congestion
    • 2.3.4 Equipment Failures
    • 2.3.5 Construction Impacts
    • 2.3.6 Incident Impacts
    • 2.3.7 Data Quality and Assurance
    • 2.3.8 Institutional Issues
• 3.0 Best or Most Common Practices used by States
  • 3.1 Introduction
  • 3.2 Best or Most Common Practices
• 4.0 Traffic Data Collection Equipment for High-Volume Locations
  • 4.1 Intrusive Data Collection Equipment
    • 4.1.1 Pneumatic Tubes
    • 4.1.2 Inductive Loop Detectors
    • 4.1.3 Vehicle Classifiers – General
    • 4.1.4 Magnetometers
    • 4.1.5 Non-Invasive Microloop
  • 4.2 Non-Intrusive Data Collection Equipment
    • 4.2.1 Active Infrared Detection Systems
    • 4.2.2 Microwave Sensors
    • 4.2.3 Passive Acoustic Detection Systems
    • 4.2.4 Video Image Detection Systems
  • 4.3 Equipment Summary
• 5.0 Guidelines for Data Collection for High-Volume Routes
  • 5.1 Data Collection
    • 5.1.1 Define High-Traffic Volume
    • 5.1.2 Identify High-Volume Locations
    • 5.1.3 Select Data Collection Strategies
  • 5.2 Data Processing and Data Quality Assurance
    • 5.2.1 Data validation
    • 5.2.2 Adjustment Factors and Growth Factors
    • 5.2.3 Assessment of Data Quality
  • 5.3 Use of ITS and Other Data Sources
    • 5.3.1 Resource Sharing
    • 5.3.2 Compatible Equipment
    • 5.3.3 Strategic Locations
    • 5.3.4 Supplemental Data Sources
  • 5.4 Equipment
    • 5.4.1 Advances in Detection Technology
    • 5.4.2 Equipment Calibration and Testing
    • 5.4.3 Equipment Maintenance
    • 5.4.4 Non-intrusive Equipment
    • 5.4.5 Testing and Evaluation Results
• 6.0 Conclusion Remarks
• 7.0 References
• Websites of State DOT Traffic Monitoring Groups
• List of Interviewees
• Glossary
• Appendix A: Guide to CD
•  
  List of Tables
• Table ES-1: Best or Most Common Practices used by States
• Table 2.1: Miles of High-volume HPMS Segments in States
• Table 3.1: Best or Most Common Practices used by States
•  
  List of Figures
• Figure 3.1: Independent Array Installation of Road-tubes (Virginia DOT)
• Figure 3.2: Washington DOT Zones for Data Collection
• Figure 3.3: California Ramp Balancing Guidelines
• Figure 3.4: California's Checklist for Editing Traffic Counts
• Figure 3.5: Virginia's Quality Flags and Error Messages from the Information System

List of Acronyms