Mike on Traffic

Minneapolis Parking Meters

The Star & Tribune has run a few articles on Minneapolis' testing of new parking meters.  The meters give you warnings if you are trying to park during restricted times and they may accept payment via cell phone.  The most interesting feature from a traffic engineering standpoint is they can do dynamic pricing - charging more when demand is higher. 

Economists and many academics in the transportation field (including David Levinson at the U of MN) argue that "toll roads" are an important tool in managing congestion.  There has been significant political and public opposition to traditional toll lanes in Minnesota.  The toll lane (technically a High Occupancy Toll - H.O.T. - lane that lets carpoolers in for free) on I-394 has been successful with dynamic pricing and we are adding a H.O.T. lane to I-35W.  Adding dynamically priced parking meters on top of the H.O.T. lanes may slowly erode the opposition to traditional toll lanes.  Time will tell.

Testing Traffic Counters

When I was an intern (quite a while ago) I was put in charge of inspecting and measuring quantities on several street lighting projects.  I measured about four miles of installed cable.  The contractor questioned my quantity saying it was low and that I was shorting him.  I met him early the next day expecting a long day of spot checking.  The first thing I did was lay out my 25 foot tape measure and check to make sure my measuring wheel was accurate.  I asked him to do the same.  His wheel said the 25 foot tape measure was 28 eight feet long.  We did the math and his quantities were off by the 28/25 ratio.  Case closed.

Are you sure the traffic data you are getting is accurate?  We test all of our counters every three months with a Jamar traffic counter tester in addition to visually verifying our counts every time we setup in the field.  The traffic counter tester blows a prescribed number of air pulses so we can test the accuracy of our air switches (volumes as well as speed and classification data).  We also do a manual test on our Jamar manual count boards - punching in a prescribed number on each button.  It seems logical to me that you need some way to ensure your counters are working properly.

One of our public sector clients has twenty tube counters of their own.  They just had us go through our test regimen for them.  Seven of their twenty counters have at least one bad air switch.  I am guessing the intern putting the counters out last year didn't think to question the accuracy of the counters.  I wonder how much bad data they collected.

Go Around Twice if You're Happy

Thanks Tom Vanderbilt for blogging about this video.  It is four minutes well spent.  I am tempted to go out to a nearby roundabout.

What is a PTOE (Professional Traffic Operations Engineer)???

As their website states "Certification as a Professional Traffic Operations Engineer™ (PTOE) is a powerful demonstration of requisite knowledge, skill and ability in the specialized application of traffic operations engineering."  I think it also enables one to leap tall buildings in a single bound...

I haven't sat for the exam yet, frankly because it doesn't mean much.  When it becomes a requirement of my clients, I'll pay the $150 to take the test and the $90 a year to maintain the certification.  Minnesota is one of the leading PTOE regions in the country and the certification has crept into a few government RFPs.  I imagine I will take the exam within two years.  From what my PTOE friends have told me, I shouldn't expect to be a significantly better traffic engineer the day the certificate shows up  (will my billing rate go up?).

Miovision Problems

I blogged about my problems with my Miovision camera system in October.  I understand hardware breaks and it takes time to repair/replace.  Fortunately, Mivision gives a lifetime warranty on the unit.  Unfortunately it has been over a month since I FedExed the camera and cable back to them($80 to ship $300 worth of components to Canada - ouch).  Before Thanksgiving I was promised replacement parts by December 8th.  I hope they are able to follow through, otherwise there seems to be a significant issue with their business model.