National Roadside Survey and Related Truck Data Collection Activities

1
National Roadside Survey and Related Truck Data
Collection Activities

• Transborder Working Group
• Calgary, Alberta
• October 21, 2004

2
National Roadside StudyHistory

• The first NRS was undertaken in 1991 to monitor
  the success of deregulation following revisions
  to the Motor Vehicle Transport Act in the late
  1980s.
• Surveys were also conducted in 1995 and 1999.
• The purpose of each survey was to collect data on
  heavy truck activity that were not currently
  available, e.g.
• Canadian / US domicile, private trucking, axle
  weights,
• Each of the surveys was conducted under the
  umbrella of the CCMTA.
• Each survey was designed to meet the needs of the
  provinces and territories, TC, and in 1999 the
  requirements of the United States were also
  included.
• CCMTA Canadian Council of Motor
  Transportation Administrators

3
NRS Current Context

• During the spring of 2003, Quebec and Ontario
  expressed interest in a future National Roadside
  Study.
• The United States FHWA also indicated some
  interest in participating in a future NRS.
• TC addressed CCMTA in October 2003, and committed
  to undertake some preliminary work to establish
  the national need and interest for a future NRS.
  
• A second report was made to CCMTA in the spring
  of 2004 on the findings from the stakeholder
  consultations.
• TC is committed to brief CCMTA again during their
  Annual Meeting on November 1st 2004.
• FHWA Federal Highways Administration

4
Planning Provincial Consultations

• A series of NRS-focused consultations were held
  with provinces and territories in March, 2004.
• Findings
• Though most jurisdictions support the proposed
  survey in 2006, three different points of view
  emerged
• Continue with the historical approach to the
  NRS including the long questionnaire
• A more focused NRS (less questions) and better
  use of technology to collect and disseminate
  information and
• Some jurisdictions made little or no use of 1999
  data due to complicated data systems to access
  information, lack of confidence in quality of
  data and long time period after completion of
  survey before release of data. Serious
  reservations were expressed related to
  methodology the importance of limiting survey to
  10-15 key questions taking no more than 5-10
  minutes was emphasized.
• Require a consensus on data elements needed from
  survey

5
Planning Provincial Consultations (cont.)

• Most provinces indicated an interest in the
  following
• Vehicle characteristics and number of movements
  related to Canada/US border-crossings.
• National and international trade-related
  commodity information.
• Survey sites on roads in addition to those on the
  National Highway System.
• Intra, inter-provincial and cross-border
  intermodal traffic.
• Consideration of seasonality in the roadside
  surveys.
• Accurate traffic counts to determine the truck
  universe passing by survey sites.
• Most jurisdictions would like on-going vehicle
  count and axle weight information, but do not own
  enough WIM units to accomplish this.

6
Planning Other Consultations

• U.S. Federal Highways Administration (FHWA)
• expressed continued interest in participating in
  a future NRS primarily due to trade-related
  activity.
• no commitment on funding, however FHWA did make a
  commitment to participate in research related to
  methodology.
• Eastern Border Transportation Coalition (EBTC)
• could not commit to the same level of involvement
  and resources as was provided for the 1999
  survey.
• Both FHWA and EBTC
• needed time to firmly establish data needs.
• felt that NRS should be discussed in other fora,
  such as the Transborder Working Group (TBWG) and
  North American Statistics Interchange.
• Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) voiced support
  for a future NRS.

7
Key Points Emerging From Consultations

• Lessons learned from 1999 NRS point towards need
  to
• Develop a more focused questionnaire to reduce
  downtime of trucks
• Gain overall consensus on data elements required
• Review survey methodology, in particular solve
  traffic count issues to get accurate universe of
  truck movements passing survey sites
• Take advantage of advances in technology for
  automating continuous/repeated collection
  (capture seasonality), storage, validation and
  dissemination of data
• Develop a training plan for field staff well in
  advance of field work
• Ensure timely release of data once survey is
  complete and
• Ensure that data can be used to address a broad
  range of priorities and can be updated easily and
  more frequently.

8
Common Areas of Interest between Provinces and
Transport Canada

• Agree on need to account for seasonality, improve
  sampling methodology and improve vehicle counts.
• All jurisdictions have an interest in specific
  common data elements, regardless of end use
• Commodity, tonnage, origin / destination OD,
  routing, vehicle characteristics and vehicle
  counts on both National Highway System (NHS) and
  non-NHS roads, country of domicile, axle weights,
  intermodal data, dangerous goods,
  tonne-kilometers, data on urban arterials and
  streets.
• This information could be used for
• Border infrastructure and security planning
• Intra, inter-provincial infrastructure planning
• Corridor freight modeling
• Full cost initiative
• Urban issues and
• Environment and climate change issues.

9
Issues with Previous Approaches used for NRS

• Many of the major shortcomings of past roadside
  surveys are tied to the methods used to collect
  data
• The use of a large, complex questionnaire
• Many errors crept in during the collection stage,
  especially trip OD and routing errors
• Traffic counting approach used to derive sampling
  weights proved to be a major source of weakness
• Most of the surveying took place at permanent
  weigh stations
• It did not allow for a sufficient representation
  of general truck activity due to their physical
  location in rural areas
• Past surveys were just a one-off with no scope
  for continuous data collection
• Huge effort spent on a small slice of time and
  space
• No way to judge seasonal changes for either
  vehicle characteristics or traffic density

10
The Issue Surrounding Traffic Counts

• The issue
• All intercept surveys e.g. NRS require traffic
  counts to derive the total trucking traffic
  population weights
• difficulties were encountered with counting
  vehicles for past intercept surveys.
• A proposed solution
• The use of Weigh-in-Motion (WIM) equipment which
  can automatically count /classify /weigh
  vehicles
• Would reduce surveying time, and costs to
  government and industry, since field workers
  would not have to weigh/measure trucks manually
• Equipment can be used beyond a one-off survey to
  collect continuous data on traffic levels and
  axle loadings
• If portable WIMs are added to the plan, then
  continuous data collection on all classes of
  roads can be envisaged, using the information for
  planning / enforcement purposes.

11
PROPOSALUse of Technology at Border Crossings

• A plan centered around the use of units to be
  installed at the main border crossings
• Purchase 50 WIM units and deploy in the following
  way
• 11 permanent scales using bending plate
  technology for border crossings handling over 500
  trucks per day (150K per site)
• 22 portable scales using piezo-electric sensors
  for border crossings handling between 100 and 500
  trucks per day (50K per site)
• 17 portable piezo-electric units to be rotated
  around the remaining 90 or so low-volume border
  crossings (50K per unit)
• Actual number of WIMs required will be
  determined when sampling methodology is completed
• Approximately 95 of transborder truck traffic
  crosses via the 33 largest crossings.
• Meets key recommendations of TBWG data committee
  to improve counting of trucks at border and
  obtain better transborder OD data
• Under a contribution agreement, WIMs could also
  be placed on U.S. side of border

12
Advantages of the Proposal for the Border OD
Survey

• Installation of WIMs would produce accurate
  traffic counts and vehicle characteristics/axle
  weights. Would significantly facilitate the
  conduct of a truck intercept survey (NRS) at the
  border
• Would meet trade-related data needs of provinces
  and TC
• Would meet key recommendation of TBWG data
  committee.
• Data collected would include OD, route,
  commodity, axle weights, tonnage, vehicle
  characteristics, number of trucks, Canadian vs.
  U.S. domicile, dangerous goods classification,
  congestion indicators.

13
Leveraging the Technology Investment

• With the proposed investment in a number of
  portable WIMs, it is possible to use them not
  only for borders but to move them strategically
  to meet a broad range of data priorities
• Quebec-Windsor Corridor truck OD survey
• Could use the 17 portable WIM units purchased for
  low-volume border crossings to conduct a truck OD
  survey in the Quebec-Windsor corridor in
  spring/summer/autumn of 2005
• Would meet provincial NRS requirements for
  Ontario and Quebec
• Would be available for NRS in 2006
• Collect vehicle class/axle loadings data for road
  cost allocation
• Develop a sampling scheme for estimating traffic
  volumes and axle loadings by class of road and
  class of motor vehicle
• Requires additional WIM equipment (up to 75 units
  nominally)
• Could borrow the portable border units (39 units)
  
• Acquire 36 additional piezo-class WIM units
• National Roadside Survey
• The additional 36 units would form basis for NRS
  in 2006 and a permanent road counting system,
  deployed throughout network.

14
Proposed Implementation Plan

• Start with cross-border trucking activity
• In early 2005, conduct an OD survey of heavy
  trucks along the Quebec / Ontario border
• Invest in WIM equipment to support border OD
  survey and collect continuous information on
  truck activity
• Followed by other trucking activity of interest
• During 2005, use some portable WIMs purchased
  for data collection at border to collect data
  for
• Quebec-Windsor Corridor Freight Modeling
• Full-Cost Investigation (would include data on
  urban arterials and on non-NHS roads)
• In 2006, portable WIMs to be used for
  establishing vehicle characteristics and traffic
  counts for intra and interprovincial, other
  corridor and border-crossing NRS.
• Following 2006, some portable WIMs to be used to
  continue gathering continuous truck activity at
  predetermined locations across country in
  addition to border crossings infrastructure
  planning, congestion.

15
Proposed Implementation PlanPlanning and
Analysis

• A necessary component of the overall plan will be
  to conduct research on methodology to enhance the
  data capture, analysis and dissemination process
• Questionnaire design /development / pilot
• Develop data entry /querying /data transmission
  /housing tools
• Validation of data
• Conduct research on
• Sampling methodology survey sites WIM placement
  for NRS, Corridor Freight Modeling, FCI, urban,
  intermodal, congestion
• Provinces with their own specific analytical
  needs will have to cover research related to such
  needs

16
Proposed Implementation PlanOther Requirements

• To improve efficiency of data collection,
  transmission, housing and validation, purchase of
  specific hardware components and development of
  dedicated software would be required
• Servers to house data
• Communications equipment to transfer data
• Tablet computers to collect data
• Camera technology
• Systems to access/disseminate data
• There will be requirements for the
  provinces/territories related to relocation of
  the portable WIM units, enforcement during survey
  periods and long-term WIM maintenance.

17
Benefits of Proposed Plan

• NRS no longer a one-off survey as WIM will
  allow data collection continuously. Data can be
  used for other priorities, therefore allows for
  economies of scale.
• Planning for survey, methodology and sampling
  well in advance of field work will reduce costs.
• Improved data collection will enhance data
  reliability, and shorten time lag for validation
  / dissemination of data.
• Reduction of level of effort as compared to
  previous NRS surveys
• WIM investment will increase productivity of NRS
  field workers who wont have to weigh and measure
  trucks manually
• Trucks will be stopped for 5-10 minutes, instead
  of 45-60 minutes.
• Provinces/territories would retain ownership of
  WIMs once surveys are completed to be used
  for ongoing long-term traffic counts and axle
  weight information.
• Acquisition of WIM equipment at half the cost
• Equipment proposed under this plan could be
  combined with existing equipment in each
  jurisdiction for ongoing / ad hoc requirements
• Ability to have ongoing monitoring of border,
  urban and other infrastructure pressures.
• Data would be shared with all participating
  partners.