Traffic survey at 8.30am?!

[Windymiller]

What fecking 'tard decides it'll be the perfect time to do a sodding traffic survey? Bonnis Hall Lane (Macclesfield) is pretty damm busy to say the least at this time... so some government feckwit decides to do a traffic survey there. Result? Few miles of traffic backed up, and people getting stressed our before they've even gotten to their offices.

I'm sure the coppers there weren't too impressed either, though I don't know if they were real cops or those play-cops (Specials is it?)

[mini-rant over]

[Nicola2]

I heard about this, this morning! My colleagues were going off there head, turned up 40 mins late for work.

Like what are they thinking they also did one in Wilmslow too last week!

[Flat6]

Yep, I got caught in the Wilmslow one on 3 different roads, A34, Knutsford Rd and Styal Rd!! All in peak times!

[Kickstart]

The powers that be are trying to justify a hugely expensive road link from the A523 through Woodford up to the airport

[GestapoWatch]

Same on the A583 connecting Preston to Blackpool at the Texaco garage. Absolute madness as there were queues all the way back to the McDonalds on Riversway.

The amount of people late for work this morning must have been astronomical. Why do it at that time and cause so much grief?

[softtop]

GestapoWatch said:

Why do it at that time and cause so much grief?

So the report says, "Yep we need the by-pass. You should have seen the queues!"

[Vipers]

Why not stick up a camera, with software to count the number of cars throughout the day, etc etc, rocket science I wonder.

[kirsty-s2k]

I used to work as an Ops Manager for a traffic survey company a few years back. They need to catch the 'regular' traffic, as in the commuting traffic, hence the need to do it between 7-10am and 4-7pm. The interview type surveys are to try and understand the wider flows of traffic in an area which would be very difficult to find using other methods such as vehicle reg recognition, generally used to figure out 'rat runs' around a small area.

I can understand the frustration it causes to the commuter and I remember taking a lot of stick when I helped out on the surveys for the company I worked for.

[softtop]

kirsty-s2k said:

I used to work as an Ops Manager for a traffic survey company a few years back. They need to catch the 'regular' traffic, as in the commuting traffic, hence the need to do it between 7-10am and 4-7pm. The interview type surveys are to try and understand the wider flows of traffic in an area which would be very difficult to find using other methods such as vehicle reg recognition, generally used to figure out 'rat runs' around a small area.

I can understand the frustration it causes to the commuter and I remember taking a lot of stick when I helped out on the surveys for the company I worked for.

don't let the truth get in the way of a good rant..

[SkinnyBoy]

They are softening up the populace for the future "Vere are your paperz schweinhund" style checkpoints.



</tinfoilhat>

[Scottie - NW]

kirsty-s2k said:

I used to work as an Ops Manager for a traffic survey company a few years back. They need to catch the 'regular' traffic, as in the commuting traffic, hence the need to do it between 7-10am and 4-7pm. The interview type surveys are to try and understand the wider flows of traffic in an area which would be very difficult to find using other methods such as vehicle reg recognition, generally used to figure out 'rat runs' around a small area.

I can understand the frustration it causes to the commuter and I remember taking a lot of stick when I helped out on the surveys for the company I worked for.

I'm glad you posted that cos I thought it was bleedin obvious but not to the first few ranters ;-)

Tell you what, we'll do a traffic survey when it's not busy to try and identify where all the traffic is trying to get to when it is busy lol!!!

[esselte]

Vipers said:

Why not stick up a camera, with software to count the number of cars throughout the day, etc etc, rocket science I wonder.

Aren't they usually interested in the start and end point of journeys? Could you get that from a camera..?

[Vipers]

esselte said:

Vipers said:

Why not stick up a camera, with software to count the number of cars throughout the day, etc etc, rocket science I wonder.

Aren't they usually interested in the start and end point of journeys? Could you get that from a camera..?

I meant to count vehicle numbers at set times of the day at a particular stretch of road, to maybe back up the idea of a by-pass if that what the survey was for.

After all, do they think you sit in a rush hour 5 days a week for the fun it, YOU ARE GOING TO WORK.

[Scottie - NW]

Vipers said:

esselte said:

Vipers said:

Why not stick up a camera, with software to count the number of cars throughout the day, etc etc, rocket science I wonder.

Aren't they usually interested in the start and end point of journeys? Could you get that from a camera..?

I meant to count vehicle numbers at set times of the day at a particular stretch of road, to maybe back up the idea of a by-pass if that what the survey was for.

After all, do they think you sit in a rush hour 5 days a week for the fun it, YOU ARE GOING TO WORK.

Yes but to have a bypass you need an A and B end, and to know if it will remove any traffic you need to know how much traffic on the congested road in question would use it. It's no good just counting the cars on the congested road, that's doesn't tell you much other than it's congested which we already know :-)

[GestapoWatch]

kirsty-s2k said:

I used to work as an Ops Manager for a traffic survey company a few years back. They need to catch the 'regular' traffic, as in the commuting traffic, hence the need to do it between 7-10am and 4-7pm. The interview type surveys are to try and understand the wider flows of traffic in an area which would be very difficult to find using other methods such as vehicle reg recognition, generally used to figure out 'rat runs' around a small area.

I can understand the frustration it causes to the commuter and I remember taking a lot of stick when I helped out on the surveys for the company I worked for.

It's not so much the time of the day as it is the place chosen. There is one merge in turn on the busiest of the two dual carriageways just before they merge themselves and it's a bottleneck at the best of times. To be slowing/stopping traffic just seemed madness as that area quickly escalates into a car park anyway at rush hour!

[CobolMan]

I used to organise and run these surveys many years ago and the one piece of advice I can give is not to be rude to the interviewers on-site; the BIB on site often has a colleague just down the road........

For a bit of background, the interviewer will usually make a note of the type of vehicle and the number of occupants. The driver will be asked to provide the start and end points of their journey and the reason for it. Back in the office, the addresses will be converted into postcodes; each postcode will be allocated to a zone - the closer to the survey area, the smaller the zone. This will help to determine which is local traffic and which is longer distance traffic.

The data is factored using various statistical techniques and loaded into a matrix (zone to zone) with reverse journeys also being included. The road network is digitised and entry points from each zone are added and the data is fed into a PC. Whilst the surveys are being performed, counts of traffic will also be performed and factoring of this data will also take place. The factoring is used to ensure that a 'typical' day's flow is used - you may have noticed that surveys only usually take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays in April, May, September and October; these are deemed to be closest to 'typical' days in 'typical' months.

The ultimate object of the exercise is to generate a computer model of the traffic network that accurately replicates what has been recorded. Once this baseline model has been generated, the potential increase in traffic volume over a 10 to 25 year period is applied to see what happens. Potential road improvements are then applied to the model and COBA is performed on the various options prior to the next Labour government cancelling the project.