Improved concepts and methods for accurate estimation of traffic volume, vehicle composition, traffic flow characteristics, and accident rates for canadian highways

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Highway agencies commit a significant portion of their financial and personnel resources to undertaking various types of data collection programs. They use permanent traffic counters (PTC), automatic vehicle classifiers, and sample counts to collect traffic volume and classification data, which play a very important role in the determination of essential highway planning and design parameters. Highway agencies also gather and investigate accident data to provide a high level of safety to road users. The main purpose of this research is to develop improved concepts and methods for estimation of traffic volume, vehicle composition, traffic flow characteristics, and accidents rates for Canadian highways. Research will utilize traffic and accident data available from highway agencies. National Climate Data available from weather stations and Alberta's Road Weather Information Systems will provide information about weather parameters. Modern statistical and computational techniques will be used to accomplish the objectives of this research. The research on estimation of the average annual daily traffic from sample traffic counts taken during winter months will help agencies to develop efficient monitoring programs by extending short duration counting to winter months. The outcome of research from study of PTCs with missing data records will allow highway agencies to maximize utilization of partially recorded data. The investigation of truck traffic will lead highway agencies to collect and process truck traffic data in a more cost-effective manner than at present. A better understanding of the impact of weather on highway safety will be highly important in developing policies that reduce weather-related crash rates on highways. Also, the knowledge about changes in collision rates between successive snow removals will be very useful for highway agencies to plan for efficient snow clearance polices. The proposed research on traffic stream characteristics during adverse weather conditions will help agencies in developing better traffic management strategies and operating polices.