Do you know where your traffic signs are? City of Cranston in Rhode Island was surprised by the answer. It turned out that almost 25% of the 2,600 stop signs in the city are not accounted for or authorized by the city. The mishap caused a great deal of legal troubles. Read the full story in the New York Times:
Congestion management and performance measurements are two of the primary functions for a transportation agency. A key to understanding both is travel time data. Possible uses of travel time data include:
Quantify a region’s overall congestion level (e.g. Travel Time Index)
Identify bottleneck areas in need of further study
Develop future improvement projects
Assess the benefits of transportation projects
Calibrate and validate regional travel demand models
Travel time data can be obtained using various methods. A traditional method is to conduct travel time runs by probe vehicles equipped with GPS units. Second by second raw GPS data (vehicle speed and latitude/longitude position) are collected and compiled to obtain travel time statistics. A more cost effective method is now available to purchase a massive amount of travel time data or even raw GPS data from commercial vendors such as INRIX and TomTom.
Landscape Architecture magazine just issued their 100-year anniversary issue. It includes a reprint of the very first issue from October, 1910. The very first article is titled “Street-Traffic Studies”, by Frederick Law Olmsted. The focus is on comparison of intersection design alternatives based first on the number of potential “collision points.”
One alternative “seeks to obviate the difficulties of the junction of four or more roads by a gyratory system of regulating traffic…”, or what is referred to as a roundabout. But Olmsted concludes that a roundabout would work well only at light traffic intersections and with little or no police control “provided the drivers could possibly be induced to turn out of their direct way in order to gyrate without being compelled to do so by the police.”
But at heavy traffic intersections, “it would seem clear that the prompt and orderly regulation of which vehicle is to give way for the other cannot possibly be effected under such conditions, even by a large number of policemen, as well as can be done single-handed on the ordinary crossing.”
In other words, “the best crossing is a four-way crossing nearly at right angles.”
In 1910, there were 458,500 registered vehicles in the United States. In 2010, there are 246,000,000 cars on US roads.
We wonder what Olmsted would say about this “Magic Roundabout” in Swindon, England. Built in 1972, it has five “mini-roundabouts” arranged in a circle. In 2009 it was voted the fourth scariest junction in Britain:
How can management quickly access critical transportation data? MS2′s new Dashboard Module allows users to display vital transportation system performance data and monitor that data using state of the art web-based technology.
The 2-minute video below shows two examples of how easy the Dashboard Module is to use. The hybrid ArcGIS Server/Google map makes locating a point quick and informative.
You may have missed it, but in addition to being April Fool’s Day, this April 1st was also National Census Day. What you probably haven’t missed are all the TV and radio ads talking about the importance of filling out the forms and how it can benefit your community. Beyond all the publicity, the Census is really just a national housekeeping effort to make sure congressional seats and federal funding are allocated proportionately to populations throughout the U.S. Read more…
The golden rule of keeping it “apples to apples” is always an essential part of making a proper comparison of multiple items. For the most part, this mentality has been widely utilized in the traffic safety world when analyzing intersection related traffic crashes.
Traffic engineers/planners and law enforcement officials primarily identify intersection related crashes through a pre-established distance from the center of the intersection and/or an officer’s selection of the crash being “intersection related” on the actual crash report. Utilizing these criteria, network-wide analyses are then performed to identify the intersections with the highest crashes, crash severity, crash rate, etc.
By Jim Santilli, Coordinator, Traffic Improvement Association, Michigan
Lieutenant David Livingston demonstrates TCAT 2.0 to law enforcement officers at the Troy Police Department on Wednesday
Law Enforcement and Traffic Engineering Officials Receive Training on a Web-Based Crash Analysis Program
WATERFORD–In a continued effort to reduce traffic crashes in the state of Michigan, the Traffic Improvement Association (TIA) hosted a training session for the users of its newest Traffic Crash Analysis Tool (TCAT 2.0) on Monday. The four-hour training session, which was held at the Oakland County Executive Office Building in Waterford, was designed to teach law enforcement and traffic engineering officials the capabilities of the new program.
“Since 1967, TIA has made the availability of accurate and timely traffic crash data a high priority,” said Susan M. Cischke, group vice president of Sustainability, Environment, and Safety Engineering at Ford Motor Company, and chair of the TIA Board of Directors. “With the advancement of computerized technology, TIA has made significant progress.”
November 23, 2011 City of Chula Vista, California has selected MS2 to implement and host a cloud-based Traffic Count Database System (TCDS). The system, integrated with Google Maps and ArcGIS server, will be used to automatically poll, process, analyze, and display vehicle counts and statistics from the city's ITS devices, such as SCATS and RTMS. […]
September 16, 2011 MS2 completed the system development work commissioned by Munetrix LLC for its Dynamic Dashboard. The dashboard, hosted by MS2, compiles and displays key performance measures for public agencies to improve fiscal transparency. […]
July 28, 2011 City of Frisco, Texas has selected MS2 to implement and host a web-based Traffic Crash Location System (TCLS). The system, integrated with Google Maps and ArcGIS server, will be used to manage and analyze traffic crash data and police reports throughout the city. […]
Congestion management and performance measurements are two of the primary functions for a transportation agency. A key to understanding both is travel time data. Possible uses of travel time data include:
