Estimating Annual Average Daily Bicycle Traffic without Permanent Counter Stations

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Traffic volumes are a basic unit of measurement for understanding the transportation system. As investments in bicycle infrastructure are made, similar measures are necessary for understanding this non-motorized mode of travel. Methods for estimating annual average daily bicycle traffic (AADBT) are still developing, but generally employ techniques used in the motorized traffic monitoring field whereby data from permanent counters are used to construct expansion factors that are then applied to short-duration counts. This approach requires a network of permanent counters and knowledge about how to group factors into appropriate categories based on patterns observed in both the short-duration and permanent counter data. The methods presented in this paper advance a new approach to estimating AADBT solely using short-duration counts. The Seasonal Adjustment Regression Model uses statistical models that relate the daily bicycle volume to daily conditions and weather variables at a given count location. These models are then used to predict daily volumes for the remaining days of the year. To verify this approach and determine the resulting error, levels of available short-duration counts using varying amounts of permanent count data were simulated. This method was then applied to short-duration bicycle counts from Eugene, Oregon. With sufficient short-duration count data, this method can produce AADBT estimates with minimal error and without requiring a network of permanent counters. This approach also circumvents the need to determine which expansion factors should be applied to different short-term count locations by using statistical models in place of expansion factors.