Development of Daily Adjustment Factors for Bicycle Traffic
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 139, Issue 8
Abstract
Daily and monthly adjustment factors have traditionally been used to expand the estimation of daily traffic volumes into average monthly and average annual traffic. However, research efforts that are devoted to developing and evaluating these factors for nonmotorized traffic, especially for cycling, are currently rare. This is attributed mainly to the lack of extensive data that can enable reliable calibration and testing of such factors. This paper explores some issues related to the development and application of daily adjustment factors for bicycle traffic. Examples include the impact of grouping daily factors by weekday/weekend and developing weather-specific factors and factors for different road classes. The analysis made use of a large data set of 500 months of daily bicycle volume data that covered 74 links in the city of Vancouver, Canada, for the years 2010 and 2011. Monthly average daily cycling volumes were estimated using different sets of factors, and the estimation accuracy was assessed and compared. It was found that developing factors for each day of the week provided similar estimation errors to grouping the factors for weekdays and weekends. In general, the best estimation results of the monthly average cycling volumes were achieved when using daily factors that are disaggregated by weather conditions. The temporal transferability of the factors was also evaluated by applying the factors from 2010 and 2011 to data from 2009. Compared to the daily factors from 2011, it was shown that the factors from 2010 provided slightly better estimation accuracies of the monthly average of daily bicycle traffic for different months in 2009. This demonstrates the degradation in the reliability of the daily adjustment factors over time, which calls for an update of these factors every few years.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Ambadipudi, R., Dorothy, P., and Kill, R. (2006). “Development and validation of large-scale microscopic models.” Proc., Transportation Research Board 85th Annual Meeting, Transportation Research Board of the National Academics, Washington, DC.
Balakrishna, R., Antoniou, C., Ben-Akiva, M., Koutsopoulos, H. N., and Wen, Y. (2007). “Calibration of microscopic traffic simulation models: Methods and application.” Transportation Research Record 1999, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 198–207.
Brandenburg, C., Matazarakis, A., and Arnberger, A. (2007). “Weather and cycling—a first approach to the effects of weather conditions on cycling.” Meteorol. Appl., 14(1), 61–67.
Gadda, S., Kockelman, K., and Maggon, A. (2007). “Estimates of AADT: Quantifying the uncertainty.” Proc., World Conf. on Transport Research Society, University Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.
Gallop, C., Tse, C., and Zhao, J. (2012). “A seasonal autoregressive model of Vancouver bicycle traffic using weather variables.” Proc., 91st Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, Transportation Research Board of the National Academics, Washington, DC.
Granato, S. (1998). “The impact of factoring traffic counts for daily and monthly variation in reducing sample counting error.” 1998 Transportation Conf. Proc., Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 122–125.
Hanson, S., and Hanson, P. (1977). “Evaluating the impact of weather on bicycle use.” Transportation Research Record 629, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 43–48.
Jha, M., Gopalan, G., Garms, A., Mahanti, B. P., Toledo, T., and Ben-Akiva, M. E. (2004). “Development and calibration of a large-scale microscopic traffic simulation model.” Transportation Research Record 1876, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 121–131.
Lewin, A. (2011). “Temporal and weather impacts on bicycle volumes.” Transportation Research Record 2536, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC.
Lindsey, G., Chen, J., and Hankey, S. (2013). “Adjustment factors for estimating miles traveled by non-motorized traffic.” Proc., 92nd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Transportation Research Board of the National Academics, Washington, DC.
Lindsey, G., Wilson, J., Rubchinskaya, E., Yang, J., and Han, Y. (2007). “Estimating urban trail traffic: Methods for existing and proposed trails.” Landsc. Urban Plan., 81(4), 299–315.
McShane, W., Prassas, E., and Roess, R. (2004). Traffic engineering, 3rd Ed., Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Miranda-Moreno, L. F., and Nosal, T. (2011). “Weather or not to cycle temporal trends and impact of weather on cycling in an urban environment.” Transportation Research Record 2247, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 42–52.
Miranda-Moreno, L. F., Nosal, T., Schneider, R. J., and Proulx, F. (2013). “Classification of bicycle traffic patterns in five North American cities.” Proc., 92nd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Transportation Research Board of the National Academics, Washington, DC.
Nankervis, M. (1999). “The effect of weather and climate on bicycle commuting.” Transp. Res. Part A, 33(6), 417–431.
Niemeier, D. A. (1996). “Longitudinal analysis of bicycle count variability: Results and modeling implications.” J. Transp. Eng., 122(3), 200–206.
Nordback, K., Marshall, W. E., Janson, B. N., and Stolz, E. (2013). “Estimating annual average daily bicyclists: Error and accuracy.” Proc., 92nd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Transportation Research Board of the National Academics, Washington, DC.
Nosal, T., and Miranda-Moreno, L. F. (2012). “Cycling and weather: A multi-city and multi-facility study in North America.” Proc., 91st Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Transportation Research Board of the National Academics, Washington, DC.
Richardson, A. J. (2000). “Seasonal and weather impacts on urban cycling trips.”, The Urban Transport Institute (TUTI), Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Rose, G., Ahmed, F., Figliozzi, M., and Jakob, C. (2011). “Quantifying and comparing effects of weather on bicycle demand in Melbourne, Australia, and Portland, Oregon.” Proc., 90th Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, Transportation Research Board of the National Academics, Washington, DC.
Sharma, S. C., Gulati, B. M., and Rizak, S. N. (1996). “Statewide traffic volume studies and precision of AADT estimates.” J. Transp. Eng., 122(6), 430–439.
Thomas, T., Jaarsma, R., and Tutert, B. (2009). “Temporal variations of bicycle demand in the Netherlands: Influence of weather on cycling.” Proc., 88th Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, Transportation Research Board of the National Academics, Washington, DC.
Tin, S. T., Woodward, A., Robinson, E., and Ameratunga, S. (2012). “Temporal, seasonal and weather effects on cycle volume: An ecological study.” Environ. Health, 11(1), 1–9.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 26, 2012
Accepted: Apr 4, 2013
Published online: Apr 5, 2013
Published in print: Aug 1, 2013
Discussion open until: Sep 5, 2013
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.