Abstract:Annual average daily traffic (AADT) is a fundamental input for numerous civil engineering applications, yet generating reliable estimates of AADT at a network-wide level poses challenges. This article explores the potential use of vehicle probe data to enhance conventional traffic monitoring practice for generating network-wide estimates of AADT by exploring relationships between site-specific traffic volume data and vehicle probe data collected in Manitoba, Canada.
The analysis revealed that mean travel… Show more
“…Zhang and Chen ( 14 ) found a very strong correlation between overall traffic volumes and probe vehicle counts. Grande et al ( 18 ) found that truck volumes exhibited a similarly strong relationship. No previous study has accounted for this important feature.…”
Network-wide truck volume information is critical for monitoring, managing, and planning highway truck systems as well as the overall transportation system. However, availability of this information is often quite limited because classification counts are only collected at a few locations each year. This paper presents a statewide truck annual average daily traffic (AADT) estimation model using widely available truck probe data that are accessible to transportation agencies. Using Kentucky as a case study, an annual average daily truck probe (AADTP) metric was derived from truck probe data and found to be strongly associated with truck AADT (Pearson’s r = 0.9). Other important variables included in the model were roadway attributes (i.e., functional class, number of lanes, lane width), network centrality, and sociodemographic characteristics of the surrounding area. The final estimation model is a random forest model as it outperformed linear regression, ridge regression, neural network, support vector machine, and extreme gradient boost algorithm in this study. Estimation results show that median and mean absolute percent errors decrease as AADTP increases. For roadways whose AADTP is greater than 53, the median and mean absolute percent errors for estimated truck AADT drop to 20% and 30%, respectively. The model’s utility is demonstrated by generating a truck volume profile for Kentucky’s statewide freight network.
“…Zhang and Chen ( 14 ) found a very strong correlation between overall traffic volumes and probe vehicle counts. Grande et al ( 18 ) found that truck volumes exhibited a similarly strong relationship. No previous study has accounted for this important feature.…”
Network-wide truck volume information is critical for monitoring, managing, and planning highway truck systems as well as the overall transportation system. However, availability of this information is often quite limited because classification counts are only collected at a few locations each year. This paper presents a statewide truck annual average daily traffic (AADT) estimation model using widely available truck probe data that are accessible to transportation agencies. Using Kentucky as a case study, an annual average daily truck probe (AADTP) metric was derived from truck probe data and found to be strongly associated with truck AADT (Pearson’s r = 0.9). Other important variables included in the model were roadway attributes (i.e., functional class, number of lanes, lane width), network centrality, and sociodemographic characteristics of the surrounding area. The final estimation model is a random forest model as it outperformed linear regression, ridge regression, neural network, support vector machine, and extreme gradient boost algorithm in this study. Estimation results show that median and mean absolute percent errors decrease as AADTP increases. For roadways whose AADTP is greater than 53, the median and mean absolute percent errors for estimated truck AADT drop to 20% and 30%, respectively. The model’s utility is demonstrated by generating a truck volume profile for Kentucky’s statewide freight network.
The widespread nature of cell phones and connected vehicle navigation systems has led to the development of commercially available probe-based traffic data products. This study assesses the accuracy of annual average daily total traffic, truck traffic, medium-duty truck traffic, and heavy-duty truck traffic volumes obtained using probe-based traffic activity indices from a North American company called StreetLight Data (StL). The probe-based estimates were compared with 2019, 2020, and 2021 volumes at eleven continuous count sites and 2019 volumes at twenty-nine short-duration count (SDC) sites in the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region. The results showed reasonable agreement between the ground truth and probe-based total traffic estimates with mean absolute percent errors (MAPEs) ranging from 8.8% to 22.1% across the study years. The medium-duty truck estimates had larger errors than total traffic with MAPEs of 29.9% to 37.5%. Despite having higher volumes than medium-duty trucks, heavy-duty trucks had the smallest probe data sample and largest errors with MAPEs of 56.6% to 96.4%. Benefiting from its larger sample size, the StL medium-duty truck index was found to be a better predictor of heavy-duty truck traffic than the heavy-duty truck index. Further, the total truck volumes estimated using only the medium-duty index were more accurate than those taken as the sum of the medium and heavy-duty truck volumes obtained using their respective indices. Finally, the percent differences for the 2019 annual average daily total traffic and truck traffic estimates at the SDC sites were comparable when only the medium-duty index was used for truck volume estimation.
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