With more than 40 years of experience in the traffic industry, Tony Tramel has seen it all. He has watched the evolution of technology and has held positions that have given him a broad view of the industry. Recently, Tramel has been hired to complete several studies in which he used CountingCars’ technology to more efficiently and accurately gather and quantify data.
A recently constructed sports complex in Youngsville, Louisiana created increased traffic flow on a road which previously had light traffic. Concerned with mitigating the increased traffic and creating more efficient and safer traffic movements, the City retained Tramel to collect a detailed traffic volume information for two intersections located by the sports complex. To get an accurate picture of the volume of traffic generated by the sports complex during week days as well as weekends, Tony was asked to collect a week’s worth of traffic data both in the fall when school was in session and as well as when school was not in session.
Initially, Tramel contemplated using road tubes to gather the data but decided against them because the hot Louisiana asphalt often causes nails to pull out and tubes to no longer be secure, causing damaged rubber tubes and inaccurate data. To avoid this problem, Tramel used a COUNTcam video solution to collect turning movement counts as well as pedestrian and bicycle counts.
In total, Tony collected 672 hours of video. Tony was able to view the video from his office and complete his counts. While he had purchased a COUNTpad, he decided to use the Counting Cars’ COUNTcloud services because of the magnitude of the data collected. This service efficiently and economically provided the turning movement counts and classified the vehicles. He also provided the video to the City so it could be used by other traffic engineers, who may, in the near future, analyze the two intersections for proposed improvements.
Based on the data, Tramel found that the majority of the crashes were coming from one direction and that 70% of traffic was turning right. Using this data, he was able to recommend several crash mitigation solutions for the area including a J-turn plan which the City implemented.
Because Tramel used video technology to gather traffic data, he was able to accurately and efficiently study and propose safety solutions for the Youngsville, LA sports complex.
