What is traffic data analysis and how does traffic data collection influence state freight plans?

Conducting a thorough traffic data analysis can have far-reaching benefits for your organization, no matter if you’re part of a freight planning team, infrastructure group or a professional services firm. Fully embracing a data-driven transportation approach for policy and project planning helps you stay informed and make better decisions, confident that analytics are backing up the direction your strategies are headed.

A traffic data analysis is a detailed study of connected vehicle data or other sources of information like station counts or pneumatic tube data. All vehicle movement insights within a defined region are generally reported within the analysis, often including both commercial and passenger vehicle activity. These insights give users an accurate idea of common travel trends as a whole, overall vehicle vocation details and how these vehicle and travel trends are influenced by factors like existing infrastructure, current demand or traffic disruptions.

A traffic data analysis starts with collecting rich, accurate transportation data in a specific region or city. The types of data to be studied might include insights on vehicle speeds, travel times, counts, congestion, bottlenecks and safety information. Viewed on a road-by-road basis, this traffic data can help users identify any prevalent challenges in an area’s road networks by supplying them with actual ground truths. Once a traffic data analysis is completed, the next steps will usually involve creating policy and infrastructure strategies that work to remedy the traffic issues identified or proactively work to prevent future problems.

In the context of state freight planning, traffic data analytics possess a variety of powerful use cases. Understanding how supply chains move and what factors affect their efficacy using transportation data help freight planners continuously improve travel efficiency throughout their regions. Here are several practical examples of traffic data analytics in action:

Easing Traffic Flows – Heavy road congestion poses multiple detriments to a region, including safety, traffic efficiency and shortened vehicle lifespans. Using a traffic data analysis, freight vehicle movement and traffic slowdowns can be studied intently for potential improvements. The effects of infrastructure projects or policies aimed at reducing traffic can also be modeled in advance, helping your team forecast their efficiency. With smoother traffic flows, freight vehicles reach their destinations faster and supply chains remain streamlined.

Better Truck Parking Infrastructure – If commercial truck drivers can’t find easy parking in your region, this issue can result in unnecessary stress, safety risks and traffic congestion, not to mention possible Hours-of-Service (HOS) compliance infractions. Studying metrics about where commercial vehicles are currently stopping most often aids transportation planners in identifying current truck parking problems and creating new strategies to solve them. Effective traffic data analytics can reveal not only the most frequent stoppage locations, but also what times commercial vehicles are usually parking at them. By gaining a strong understanding of these tendencies, you can build additional commercial parking options nearby and alleviate strain on existing resources.

Guiding New Sustainability Measures – Stop metrics within a traffic data analysis can help your region execute on environmental objectives like electric vehicle (EV) charger site selection. Coupling where freight vehicles are moving with where they’re stopping gives you a powerful understanding of all travel tendencies, so you can intelligently build up the transportation grid to support more commercial EVs. Examining the locations where traffic bottlenecks usually occur can help you create new policy or infrastructure decisions to reduce excess fuel burn. By supporting more fleets in their initiatives to electrify and reduce carbon emissions, leverage traffic data analytics to improve your region’s sustainability.

At Altitude by Geotab, we know the value of traffic data collection for constructing tomorrow’s transportation grids. Our Altitude platform aggregates data from millions of commercial vehicles, giving you accurate, real-world traffic analytics to base your strategies on.

With both commercial vehicle miles traveled (VMTs) and contextualized freight data baked into our platform, Altitude gives you a deeper view at the types of vehicles traveling in your region and which industries they’re associated with. Planners and policymakers using our solution can arm themselves with valuable industry context, then prepare better transportation ideas that account for vehicles’ specific purposes.

With Altitude by Geotab’s traffic data collection and aggregated insights, you can increase your region’s resiliency in a number of unique ways, Here are just several of the many extensive ways Altitude can benefit your organization’s transportation strategies:

• Increase regional sustainability with smarter EV charging locations and looser traffic flows.
• Enhance commercial and passenger vehicle safety by using data to reduce collision risk factors.
• Improve transportation equity by analyzing underserved areas and building new infrastructure.
• Reduce supply chain disruptions by constructing more resilient transportation networks.
• Limit extended travel times using data-driven traffic mitigation strategies.

With a detailed traffic data analysis using Altitude by Geotab’s insights, set your region’s transportation networks up for greater success and efficiency.

Learn more about how to begin your transportation journey with Altitude by speaking with one of our dedicated solutions experts. Our team is excited to help you achieve your region’s transportation sustainability, safety and equity goals. We’ll take a detailed look at what challenges your state, nation or city faces and demonstrate how our connected vehicle data may be able to help you create smarter solutions to solve them.

Schedule a call and demo with us to start your next traffic data analysis project today by clicking here.