Pedestrians' big debut in traffic simulation - PTV America

Traffic Management / PTV AG
Count, Analyse, Plan –
with a Focus on Sustainability
Transportation professionals have to manage and
process huge amounts of data in traffic management.
PTV’s TrafficCountManagement software allows them
to enter, process and analyse these data records. Data
preparation helps transportation planners and engineers
to better evaluate traffic-related changes and to
take appropriate measures aimed at improving the
situation. Many cities cannot afford costly permanent
traffic counters to collect data on inner-city traffic.
Integrating short-term counts into the software allows
them to cost-efficiently estimate annual average
daily traffic (AADT) volumes.
Count data are a vital component in traffic and transportation
planning. They provide information on how
changes influence traffic which is then used as a basis
for decision-making in the field of transportation planning
and urban development.
PTV TrafficCountManagement (TCM) allows users to
import, process and analyse count data from different
data providers. Some of the key features include flexible
import, plausibility check and the central data-
base. A user-friendly count manager and key data administration
complement the wide range of functions.
Additionally, users can quickly and easily create complex
MS Excel-based analyses and reports.
The state of Tyrol, Austria, has been using the system
since 2006. Tyrol has more than 136 count cross-sections
and 13 traffic counters distributed across its motorway
and expressway network covering about 2,300
km. The collected data are transferred to a computer
centre for immediate processing. As a state that has to
cope with a high volume of freight, commuter and holiday
traffic, Tyrol now benefits from sustainable traffic
and transportation planning based on the current analysis
results. The state of Kärnten and Salzburg in
Austria and the German state of Hesse (HLUG) as well
as several transportation consulting firms have also
chosen PTV’s TCM solution.
The new version 2.2 includes node flow counts and
short-term traffic counts. (Fig 1) The average annual
daily traffic is calculated on the basis of permanent
traffic counters with annual traffic flows that are similar
to those at the cross-section of short-term traffic
counts. It is also possible to manage node flow counts:
a node editor enables users to flexibly define the node
topology (Fig 2) and to easily import surveys from historic
counts. This software is of particular interest to
cities which cannot afford to install costly permanent
traffic counters. But this is only one of the reasons why
the City of Leipzig will soon participate in a pilot for
the German market.
In the United States, the Oregon Department of
Transportation has chosen TCM features to improve
transportation planning in numerous cities. ODOT is
using the software to store their date and host their
sites in one centralized system, which allows all user
and planning groups to access all counts, both permanent
and temporary, in one application.
Fig 1: Data input for short-term counts
Fig 2: A node editor allows node topology to be configured individually.
TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT – BEST PRACTICE
The state of Tyrol, Austria,
relies on data analysis for
sustainable traffic and
transportation planning
Your contact:
Ralf Frisch
ralf.frisch@ptv.de
www.ptvag.com
COMPASS INTERNATIONAL 01/2008 15