Traffic count

A traffic count is a count of vehicular or pedestrian traffic, which is conducted along a street or road or at an intersection. A traffic count is commonly undertaken either automatically (with the installation of a temporary or permanent electronic traffic recording device), or manually by observers who visually count and record traffic on a hand-held electronic device or tally sheet. A count conducted at an intersection is called a turning movement count and separately records the different movements of people and vehicles through the intersection. Traffic counts are used by governments for many purposes such as providing warrants for specific infrastructure changes, prioritizing maintenance work, and as inputs to traffic demand models or other planning exercises. Traffic counts provide the source data used to calculate the Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT), a common indicator used to represent traffic volume. Traffic counts that include speeds are used in speed limit enforcement efforts, highlighting peak speeding periods to optimise speed camera use and educational efforts.