Chet Skwarcan is an award-winning engineer, writer, and industry innovator in the field of traffic engineering. He is known for leveraging his creativity, logic, and technology to solve today’s engineering challenges.

Traffic is Back to “Ab-Normal”

And it Always has Been…

What is normal traffic? How will we know when traffic is normal? Rush hour is starting to look familiar, but I can’t say I’ve missed it…

As traffic engineers, we are constantly analyzing and predicting traffic conditions to recommend appropriate measures to keep traffic flowing as efficiently as possible. We are called upon to provide advice and recommendations regardless of whether traffic is “normal.” We understand that “normal” is not something we wait for. Rather, it is what happened last month, last week, and today. So how do we make recommendations based on ab-normal traffic?

In a sense, traffic is always abnormal. The pace of development varies, the economy fluctuates, and growth rates oscillate. So when it comes to analyzing and planning for future traffic conditions, we do what we always do — we Google it. And then, after that, we consider additional resources…

These resources include first, measuring current traffic volumes — what’s happening right now? Secondly, we review available historical traffic data including previous studies, government resources, and planning documents. And, more recently, we access something affectionately referred to as Big Data. This consists of anonymized cell phone tracking location information (yep, we know where you’ve been).

Comparing existing traffic conditions to historical conditions provides a basis for determining adjustment factors and growth rates to predict future traffic volumes. And in situations where new development is planned, we add additional traffic (based on the size and type of development) to check future traffic as if the development was already in place. This allows planning for future turn lanes, traffic signals, roundabouts, and pedestrian crossings. And because traffic growth and the pace of development is affected by the economy (and also pandemics), follow-up traffic counts are often collected to adjust the timing of recommended improvements.

Now, more than ever, it’s important to keep moving forward. Considering all available data and if analysis determines improvements are required, make the necessary allowances and phase the improvements to stay in sync with “abnormal” traffic growth and development rates. And fortunately, traffic engineers are accustomed to being abnormal (you know what I mean).

 

Chet Skwarcan (traffic engineer, author, unique insights) with over 25 years of traffic engineering experience — online ideas available at TrafficEngineering.com/Services or Chet@TrafficEngineering.com.

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