13 Questions for Scoping a Traffic Study

Here are thirteen questions every traffic engineer should ask when a client asks them for a traffic study proposal (developers, architects, planners, etc. - feel free to prepare answers to these questions before you call your traffic engineer for a proposal):

1. Where is it?  Ask if they have a minute so you can pull up an aerial on your computer (I am currently having the best luck with Bing^TM having up to date aerials).
2. What kind of development is it (commercial, retail, houses, industrial, etc.)?
3. How big is it (acres, gross square footage, employees, students, etc.)?  If it’s a mixed use development (a site with different kinds of uses), get a breakdown of size for each use.
4. How many accesses (driveways) are they planning?  What roads will the accesses be on?  Any existing driveways into the site?
5. When will it be fully occupied?
6. Will it be built in phases?
7. Do they have a concept or site plan they can email you? 
8. Have they discussed the traffic study with any government staff?  If yes, who?  Notes from the meeting?
9. Do they know of any nearby recent development?  Any traffic studies done for this parcel or nearby parcels?
10. When do they need the proposal?
11. When do they need the draft traffic study?
12. Will they want you to present the traffic study results at a government staff meeting, a neighborhood meeting, a public hearing at the city council, etc?
13. Are they getting other proposals for the traffic study (this is delicate, but it’s always good to know if you have competition – if you do have competition, try to find out who)?

Did I miss anything?

Comments

[Tom Domres]

Good points, Mike. I like your list. One area that chews up time and budget are meetings with the agencies. You could add to Number 12: "how many meetings will the traffic engineer need to attend?" This is guess-work to some extent, but it helps the PM work on a realistic quote.

Bing is good. Also, I use Google Maps and even Mapquest at times to zero in on a location. It can be tough to find some of the locations along the railroads.

Excellent post, Mike!

Tom