TRAFFIC DATA ANALYSIS

Francisco M. Delgado
Flow
-is defined as the number of vehicles per unit
time passing a point is space, and is usually
expressed in vehicles per hour.
Speed
-is the rate of change of distance
with respect to time, and is
usually measured in either miles
per hour( or kilometers per hour)
or feet per second(or meters per
second), depending on the
application.
 Density
-is defined as the number of vehicles per unit distance occupying
a section of roadway at a given instant in time, and is usually
measured in vehicles per mile or per kilometer.
Occupancy
-is defined as the fraction of time that vehicles
are present at a point in space.
Flows and Volumes
Volume Counts
-hand counts/ manual
-machine counts/ detection devices
Three Basic Types of
Variations of Traffic Flow
• Trends- are non-repetitive changes over
extended period of time
• Peaking Patterns- are repetitive changes
over time intervals such as day, week or
year
• Random Variations
VARIANCE
•  ∑ ( 𝑿 𝒊 − 𝑿´ )  
𝟐 𝒊
𝝈 =
𝒏
 STANDARD DEVIATION
• 

´
∑ ( 𝑿𝒊− 𝑿 )
𝒔=
√ 𝒊
𝒏− 𝟏
 DISTRIBUTION OF MEANS
• 
𝑠𝑋
𝑠𝑋
´ =
 
√𝑛
The statistics,
 
•  𝟐
𝟐 (𝑶 − 𝑬 )
𝒙 =
𝑬
 

• (based on the Poisson Distribution

Poisson Distribution

•  −𝝁 𝒓
𝒆 𝝁
𝑷𝒓 =
𝒓!
Sample Problem
The Table below gives the distribution
of 30-s counts taken on a freeway
onramp. Test the hypothesis that
there is no significant difference
between this count distribution and a
Poisson Distribution at the o.o5 level
of significance
Count Frequency of Occurrence
0 1
1 2
2 10
3 10
4 17
5 5
6 3
7 1
8 1
>8 0
Count Frequency of Occurrence E
0 1 1.42
1 2 5.06
2 10 9.01
3 10 10.69
4 17 9.52
5 5 6.78
6 3 4.02
7 1 2.04
8 1 0.91
>8 0 0.55