Traffic Counts in Dublin

godtabh

There is a lot of manual and ATC counts going on in Dublin at the moment.

Any one know what they are for:?

Victor

Usual November cordon counts I imagine.

KC61

kearnsr wrote: »

There is a lot of manual and ATC counts going on in Dublin at the moment.

Any one know what they are for:?

The annual DTO traffic and public transport user census is taking place.

godtabh

I thought was just along the two canals? I've seen people doing manual counts in loads of places.

And they uusally just do video counts or ATC counts. Manual counts are very expensive

HonalD

QBC Monitoring. There are reports in the publications section on the DTO website from other years. Staff manually note the reg of buses along the QBC and some cars and then compare travel times etc. :cool:

Alun

HonalD wrote: »

QBC Monitoring. There are reports in the publications section on the DTO website from other years. Staff manually note the reg of buses along the QBC and some cars and then compare travel times etc. :cool:

Wow, what a super high-tech solution :rolleyes: Have they never heard of GPS?

HonalD

Alun wrote: »

Wow, what a super high-tech solution :rolleyes: Have they never heard of GPS?

What's the fun in that when you can spend loads of cash on paying poor sods next to nothing to stand by the side of the road in November (in this weather!) - how they can write in the cold and rain I don't know!

AlekSmart

There is also a possibility that some of the note-takers may be associated with the putative Dublin Transport Authority,shortly to arrive at platform X

Now the interesting point is that the DTA`s first major policy decision is likely to be the Public Service Obligation (PSO) contract with Bus Atha Cliath for its services,which must be in place by December 2009.

This is likely to prove an administrative minefield which may well take the finely honed business mind of an ex Irish Banking CEO to sort out.

I suspect that "both" sides are setting out their stalls in order to secure the best deal under the new arrangements,loosely titled the1370 deal in honour of it`s status as EU Regulation 1370.

This will entail some horse trading over how many buses per hour are on route X and how many on route Y etyc etc.
I have little doubt but that some bright young thing reckoned a static count would produce irrefutable evidence to prove whatever case they want...however,these counts have the capacity to provide hopelessly innacurate and largely useless data which bears no resemblance to anything.

For example,cross city bus traffic heading for the Swords QBC is now regularly at a standstill as far back as Parnell St due.

One might have expected the introduction of the new stretch of Bus Lane from Granby Row to Blessington St might have made a difference.

Or at least it would IF those Buses were able to access it.

The basics are all there,in the shape of a Central Bus Lane on the Granby Row approach which theoretically allows for an unimpeded right-turn into the Dorset St BusLane....or at least it DID until the City Council erected a Pole and a Litter Bin on the edge of the footpath outside the Pizza Joint...Result ? The Busdriver now cannot make the wider sweep necessary to accomodate the general traffic now also turning into the outer general traffic lane on Dorset St.

This small piece of Civic bufoonery now results in total stasis every evening at the same location which of course also suffers due to the City Council failing to extend the yellow-box to accomodate the new lane markings....the net effect of this muppetry is to essentially negate at least 60% of the Swords Rd QBC`s potential.

This little tableau of course is TOTALLY unknown to the Managers,Planners,Engineers and Ex Taoisigh who merely look at coloured lines on flip-charts whilst sipping a cognac in convivial surroundings.

What it does do however is make a total ballcocks of ANY Bus flow dats recorded up or downstream of this location as most of the vehicles will be wildly askew from their scheduled locations.

Quite what GPS would bring to the situation I can only guess.... :cool: :cool: :cool:

Alun

AlekSmart wrote: »

Quite what GPS would bring to the situation I can only guess.... :cool: :cool: :cool:

GPS data can be used for far more than simple tracking, i.e. "where is that bus now?". Set the thing to continuously record track data over several weeks, and you can produce speed profiles versus either time or distance and correlate these to specific locations. Produce one for the stretch you mentioned above, plonk it on someone's desk and ask why, if there's supposedly a QBC in place the average speed through that stretch isn't any better than it was before the QBC was built.

You can also garner all kinds of other 'interesting' information, like 145's travelling at up to 75 km/h along the 50km/h limited section of the road between Bray and Shankill (allegedly )