Traffic Counts and Road Inventories
Responsible Staff: James Steele
This service is made possible through a grant from the New Hampshire Department of Transportation
Purpose
Traffic Counts and Road Inventories are important to the NH Department of Transportation (NHDOT), the Regional Planning Commissions and the towns because they provide the essential statistical data that helps determine transportation project needs. The NHDOT stores the data and uses it to assist in the planning of road reconstruction, road widening, or uses it for development of a corridor study. NCC, along with the other regional planning commissions, collects this information for DOT and shares it with our communities.
Description
Traffic Counts are collected by placing rubber tubes over a roadway and attaching them to a counter. Traffic Counts can be collected for volume or classification, identifying what types of vehicles and how many of those types crossed over a roadway in a given area. Road Inventories is a process of mapping the roads within a community using a Global Positioning Device (GPS). NCC works with the towns in collecting road inventory data to make sure all information collected is accurate before sending it to DOT.
Timeframe
Traffic Counts are primarily done in the late spring to early fall months. They can not be put down in the winter due to freezing of the tubes and snow plows. Traffic counters usually remain at a given area for one week. Road Inventories can be done year round and the process for collecting the data takes approximately one month to complete.
Related Services & Programs
TIP & TE Programs - It is helpful to know the traffic volume in a given area of a potential project. Traffic increase and flow are not the only factors that the transportation committee and DOT look at when reviewing and prioritizing projects, but they are some of the factors.
Corridor Projects and SPR - Most corridor studies and special planning studies for transportation corridors involve traffic counts.
* It is important to note that the NHDOT sends NCC a list of sites and types of counts to collect for the Traffic Count Program and a schedule for collection of road inventory data . NCC can, per request, do additional counts for a community and update a road inventory not scheduled by NHDOT, but this would require a contractual agreement between NCC and the Community. The cost of the service would depend on the number of counts, or roads, to be collected.