PROJECTING ANNUAL TRAFFIC VOLUMES FROM PEAK HOUR VOLUMES

GRS Ramsey

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

1996

Subject Area

operations - traffic, land use - planning, ridership - forecasting, ridership - forecasting, economics - appraisal/evaluation

Keywords

Transportation policy, Transportation planning, Traffic volume, Statistics, Scenarios, Rush hour, Proposals, Projections, Peak hour traffic, Models, Mathematical models, Forecasting, Evaluation, Criteria

Abstract

British Columbia, Canada, is evaluating various proposals to aid in the development of transportation policies that would encompass all modes. The government is evaluating each proposal using diverse criteria, such as travel time, vehicle operating costs, number of accidents, vehicle emissions, and government costs. Many of the criteria are based on projected traffic volumes, which are determined by a transportation planning model. This article explains the manner in which single-day, peak hour traffic volumes were used to project full-year, 24-hour volumes as part of an analysis of transportation alternatives for metropolitan Vancouver. The transportation model produced four categories of statistics: vehicle-kilometers, person-kilometers, vehicle-hours, and person-hours. Information was provided for five modes: single-occupant vehicle, high-occupancy vehicles, light trucks, heavy trucks, and transit vehicles. The level of congestion on each road was estimated using the volume/capacity ratio and later grouped into bands representing further increases in the projected level of congestion. The combination of statistics, mode, and band provided a wealth of information to investigators.

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