An Assessment of a Major Traffic Monitoring System for a Major Traffic Generator to Improve Regional Planning: Project Summary Report (0-5531-S)

Regional planning relies on many types of data, e.g., roadway network maps, capacities, demands, vehicle classification, vehicle occupancy, demographic data, origin/destination data, etc. A portion of these data can be available via automated data collection. When plans for a mega-traffic generator, e.g., an automobile manufacturing plant, are announced modifications to the regional plan become necessary. In addition, as in the case of the Toyota Motors Manufacturing Texas (TMMTX) plant in Bexar County, where a mega-traffic generator is located in an isolated area where traffic volumes are light, there is an opportunity to monitor changes in traffic characteristics and apply lessons learned to other future mega-traffic generator sites. The specific case study at TMMTX includes an assessment of the types of regional planning data that can also be collected in an automated fashion, the development of the types of reports that can be generated from such data, criteria for data collection sites, data reporting scenarios, data collection and communication equipment architecture, and data collection and analysis.