Highway Performance Monitoring System: Seeing Traffic Density in Your Neighborhood

Mapbox has created a map visualizing the latest Highway Performance Monitoring System national highway dataset. The Open Highway Data Set Map shows all the HPMS traffic density measurements for US roads.

Roads on the map with traffic density data are colored yellow. The thickness of the yellow lines on the map relate to the amount of traffic. Thick lines indicate more traffic and thinner lines less traffic. Zoom in on the map and you can view the average number of vehicles per day for different sections of roads.

Visit the site and zoom in to your neighborhood to see how many vehicles travel daily on some of the local roads where you live. Below happens to be a screen shot of the Village of Herkimer, with some rudimentary roads labeled by me. Click on the map to enlarge it.

CLICK TO ENLARGE THE MAP

Interactive Mapping of Traffic Counts, Speeds and Other Road Features

The NYS Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) offers an online interactive mapping viewer which allows you to see various features and traffic counts of most roadways across the State. The tool, called the Traffic Data Viewer, displays published traffic data geographically. On the interactive map individuals have control of displaying data for individual traffic stations , the type of data available, and the location of counters  used to collect the data.  Estimates of Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) are available graphically for segments of roadway that contain a traffic station.  Traffic Volume Reports containing hourly data are also available for most traffic stations.

When launching the Traffic Data Viewer, you get the opportunity to select a place and then the type of data you'd like to see. The data includes the Annual Average Daily Counts, the Continuous Counts, and the Short Counts, as well as location of bridges and at-grade crossings. Once you launch the map and select the features you'd like, simply right click on any of the activated features on the map and you can then see the various reports or data available for that item. Click on the sample below to see a screen shot of what it might look like.

CLICK TO ENLARGE SCREEN SHOT

There are databases (in Excel) that allow you to search for the ID codes for specific locations (say a specific bridge crossing Moyer Creek in the Town of German Flatts in Herkimer County for example), but admittedly the process is a bit confusing at times. They can be found on the Traffic Data Viewer homepage.

Traffic Fatality Data Mapped for US

ITO World, a transport information specialist group based in the UK, produces mapping and visualizations to help people understand and analyze complex transport data. Their clients include Google, the UK Department of Transport and also many transport agencies and operators.

One of the mapping functions they have available shows traffic fatalities for anyplace in the US. The fatality data for the USA is supplied via the Fatality Analysis Reporting System of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Their site can be used to view information about virtually every fatality that occurred on roads in the United States as a result of a collision involving a motor vehicle between between 1 January 2001 and 31 December 2009. For each incident you will be able to see the person's age, sex and the year in which the crash took place. Where information is not available fields are left blank.

To see local data, you can look at this map of the Herkimer and Oneida Counties region. To look at other locations, enter a place name into the search box, press return and then select the correct result from the results list. If the place is not listed then try a larger place nearby.