Estimation of annual average daily traffic for off-system roads in Florida. Final report

Estimation of Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) is extremely important in traffic planning and operations for the state departments of transportation (DOTs), because AADT provides information for the planning of new road construction, determination of roadway geometry, congestion management, pavement design, safety considerations, etc. AADT is also used to estimate state wide vehicle miles traveled on all the roads and is used by local governments and the environmental protection agencies to determine compliance with the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment. Additionally, AADT is reported annually by the Florida Department of transportation (FDOT) to the Federal Highway Administration. In the past, considerable efforts have been made in obtaining traffic counts to estimate AADT on state roads. However, traffic counts are often not available on off-system roads, and less attention has been paid to the estimation of AADT in the absence of counts. Current estimates rely on comparisons with roads that are subjectively considered to be similar. Such comparisons are inherently subject to large errors, and also may not be repeated often enough to remain current. Therefore, a better method is needed for estimating AADT for off-system roads in Florida. This study investigates the possibility of establishing one or more models formore » estimating AADT for off-system roads in Florida.« less