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Traffic Speed Data Specification
Traffic Speed Data Specification

Review the traffic speed analysis metrics and data attributes.

Justin Dennis avatar
Written by Justin Dennis
Updated over a week ago

Insights Traffic Speed Analysis provides you with a comprehensive speed reporting tool to analyze speeds on all roads in your county, municipal or custom boundary.

Traffic Speed analysis reports are organized by:

  • Boundary: Roads within a Municipal Boundary or Census Tract

  • Month: Selected month of recorded speed data

  • Layers: Aggregated datasets

    • Average Speed: Determined by averaging all of the traffic speeds per roadway segments.

    • 85th Percentile Speed: Determined by 85 percent of the traffic speeds observed to travel under free-flowing conditions per roadway segments.

Roadway Segment Analysis Report

When you select a road segment, a report for that month and road will open.

The report includes analytics metrics for:

  • Average Speeds

  • Percentile Speeds

  • Average Speed by Hourly Periods

  • Percentile Speed by Hourly Periods

  • Speed Comparison by Month

The report includes analytics for

  • 85th Percentile Speed

  • Speed Category: This is the Urban SDK estimated Posted Speed Limit.

  • Average Speed

  • 95th Percentile Speed

  • AM Peak 85th Percentile Speed

Example Roadway Segment Analysis includes:

Traffic Speed Percentiles Report

Average Speed by Period

Speed by Month

The Roadway Segment Analysis is designed for users to quickly analyze traffic speed and safety hotspots on a particular roadway segment.

Use Cases

  1. Traffic Calming and Public Complaints:

    • Use Case: View 85% speed data on road classes 1-7 within the municipal boundary.

    • Benefit: Efficiently validate the validity of public complaints before sending a team member or consultant to collect roadway data.

  2. Pre and Post Implementation Analysis:

    • Use Case: Analyze the impact of new measures implemented in the community.

    • Benefit: Assess the effectiveness of measures not only on individual roadways but also on the surrounding community.

  3. Safety and Hotspot Identification:

    • Use Case: Identify correlations between crashes and speeding incidents.

    • Benefit: Overlay local and state crash data to pinpoint areas with high rates of speed and crash clusters.

  4. Data Sharing and Reporting:

    • Use Case: Generate automated monthly reports for each road segment.

    • Benefit: Simplify communication with council members and stakeholders, providing clear insights into community status and aiding in the allocation of capital funds.


Report Types

Roadway Speed Analysis

Typically used to quickly analyze traffic speed and safety hotspots on a particular roadway segment.

Crash Database

  • (Coming Soon)

Corridor Analysis

  • (Coming Soon)

Travel Time Reliability

  • (Coming Soon)


Layers

  • Layer Name: Average Speed

  • Description: Determined by averaging all of the traffic speeds per roadway segments. Speed limit is determined by reported limit or free flow of traffic.

  • Layer Name: 85th Percentile Speed

  • Description: Determined by 85 percent of the traffic speeds observed to travel under free-flowing conditions per roadway segments. Speed category is determined by posted speed limit or free flow of traffic when no post speed limit is available.


Map

  • Below (yellow) - Below normal is determined by values -9.99 and lower than the speed limit.

  • Normal (green) - Normal is determined by values close to the speed limit.

  • Above (red) - Above normal is determined by values +9.99 and above the speed limit.


Zone Types

  • County - Geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes in some modern nations.

  • Census Tract - Geographic area roughly equivalent to a neighborhood established by the Bureau of Census for analyzing populations.

  • Custom - Geo-specific boundary for organizations that oversee multiple counties, MPO, DOT District or custom areas. Urban SDK can implement custom zone types upon request.


Hourly Periods

  1. Overnight: 12 am - 3:59 am

  2. Early Morning: 4 am - 6:59 am

  3. AM Peak: 7 am - 9:59 am

  4. Midday: 10am - 12:59 pm

  5. Early Afternoon: 1pm - 3:59pm

  6. PM Peak: 4pm - 6:59pm

  7. Evening: 7pm - 11:59pm


Tooltip Info for Extended Score Card

When you hover over a road segment, we will display a hover tooltip for details including:

  • Road Segment ID- A unique identifier for the road segment

  • Name - The name of the road.

  • Functional Class - The functional classification of the road.

  • Speed Category- Generally indicated on posted speed limit or traffic sign reflecting the maximum permitted speed in mph on the roadway segment. If no posted speed limit is available, we refer to freeflow speed based on 85th Percentile speeds.

  • Average Speed - Generally indicated as the mean rate of speed on the roadway segment.

  • 85% Percentile Speed - Generally indicated to show speed at or below 85 percent of drivers travel on the roadway segment.

  • 95% Percentile Speed - Generally indicated to show speed at or below 95 percent of drivers travel on the roadway segment.


FAQs

  • Where does the data come from?

    • We acquire data from vehicle telematics and connected vehicle sources aggregated by OEM manufacturers.

    • Our data is the same as used by the FHWA The National Performance Management Research Data Set (NPMRDS) Source

    • We are happy to validate our dataset against ground truth or recent speed studies.

  • How much historical data is available?

    • Accounts will have a minimum of 13 months historical data from the day a new account is created.

    • Urban SDK can provide historical backfills upon request.

  • Can I filter the time period ranges?

    • Currently, you can filter by month.

    • We have roadmap plans to allow for hourly periods.

  • Are the legends customizable?

    • No, legends are static. Custom legends are available by exporting data to a Studio map.

  • Where does Speed Limit come from?

    • The posted speed limit or if no posted speed limit is available, we display the record freeflow speed for the date range.

  • Can you select multiple links?

    • Not currently but is on the roadmap to allow users to create custom routes of multiple road segments on the same roadway.


Traffic Speed Data Specification

When you export traffic speed data, the CSV file will include the following attributes:

Attribute

Type

Value

roadway_segment_id

numeric

17007026

year

numeric

2023

month

numeric

9

period_of_the_day

numeric

2

speed_average_sunday

numeric

68.80141

speed_average_monday

numeric

65.14142

speed_average_tuesday

numeric

61.01872

speed_average_wednesday

numeric

64.72340

speed_average_thursday

numeric

61.98145

speed_average_friday

numeric

63.59384

speed_average_saturday

numeric

68.81748

road_name

string

Turnpike

county_name

string

Miami Dade

state_name

string

Florida

funclass_id

numeric

2

roadway_segment_length

numeric

0.11309

usdk_speed_category

numeric

35

geometry

WKT

(MULTILINESTRING)

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