Traffic count - Wikipedia
A traffic count is a count of vehicular or pedestrian traffic, which is conducted along a particular road, path, or intersection. A traffic count is commonly undertaken either automatically (with the installation of a temporary or permanent electronic traffic recording device), or manually by observers who visually count and record traffic on a hand-held electronic device or tally sheet.[ 1] Traffic counts can be used by local councils to identify which routes are used most, and to either improve that road or provide an alternative if there is an excessive amount of traffic. Also, some geography fieldwork involves a traffic count. Traffic counts provide the source data used to calculate the Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT), which is the common indicator used to represent traffic volume. Traffic counts are useful for comparing two or more roads, and can also be used alongside other methods to find out where the central business district (CBD) of a settlement is located. Traffic counts that include speeds are used in speed limit enforcement efforts, highlighting peak speeding periods to optimise speed camera use and educational efforts.
To permanently or temporarily monitor the usage of a road, an electronic traffic counter can be installed or placed to measure road usage continuously or for a short period of time. Most modern equipment called ATR's (Automatic Traffic Recorders) store count and/or classification data recorded in memory in a timestamp or interval fashion that can be downloaded and viewed in software or via a count display on some equipment. In some instances people either draw up a table and/or use a tally to keep a record of vehicles which pass manually as an alternative to ATR's.
