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Origin-Destination Surveys
GUIDELINE 1
AACRA TRAFFIC AND AXLE LOAD STUDY MANUAL
CONTENTS
5 ORIGIN-DESTINATION SURVEYS....................................................................................................... 5-1
5.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................. 5-1
5.2 OVERVIEW ........................................................................................................................................ 5-1
5.3 CONDUCTING A NUMBER PLATE SURVEY ........................................................................................... 5-2
5.3.1 Defining a Cordon................................................................................................................... 5-2
5.3.2 Setting the Survey Time ......................................................................................................... 5-3
5.3.3 Setting the Sample Rate......................................................................................................... 5-3
5.3.4 Selecting the Characters to be Recorded .............................................................................. 5-3
5.3.5 Field Data Collections............................................................................................................. 5-4
5.4 SOURCES OF ERROR IN ORIGIN-DESTINATION SURVEYS ..................................................................... 5-5
5.4.1 Errors in Data Recording ........................................................................................................ 5-5
5.4.2 Start-up and Shut-down Errors............................................................................................... 5-5
5.4.3 Confused Characters.............................................................................................................. 5-5
5.4.4 Spurious Matchings ................................................................................................................ 5-5
5.5 DATA ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION OF RESULTS .............................................................................. 5-6
5.5.1 Analysis of Number Plate Data............................................................................................... 5-6
5.5.2 Presentation of Results .......................................................................................................... 5-7
5.6 REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................... 5-9
TABLE OF FIGURES
FIGURE 5-1 SETTING CORDON STATION LOCATIONS ............................................................................................ 5-2
FIGURE 5-2 EXAMPLE OF POSSIBLE AMBIGUITIES IN DATA DUE TO STATION LOCATION ........................................... 5-2
FIGURE 5-3 RECORDING OF SEPARATE TURNING MOVEMENTS ............................................................................. 5-3
FIGURE 5-4 INTERNAL AND CORDON LINE STATIONS ............................................................................................ 5-3
FIGURE 5-5 AN EXAMPLE OF A COMPLETED REGISTRATION NUMBER PLATE SURVEY ............................................ 5-4
FIGURE 5-6 EXAMPLE OF A REGISTRATION PLATE MATCHING SURVEY DATA REDUCTION ...................................... 5-6
FIGURE 5-7 ORIGIN-DESTINATION (TRIP-INTERCHANGE) MATRIX .......................................................................... 5-8
FIGURE 5-8 DESIRE LINE DIAGRAM ..................................................................................................................... 5-8
5 ORIGIN-DESTINATION SURVEYS
5.1 Introduction
The purpose of Origin-Destination Surveys is to reveal where the traffic desires to travel. These surveys may
range from simple studies to determine the amount of traffic that would by-pass a town, to comprehensive
transportation surveys for planning and design of transport systems in a large metropolitan area.
Note that Origin-Destination Surveys are liable to significant errors and biases. In addition, these surveys are
very labour intensive and costly and thus care is needed to avoid wasting scarce resources (Austroads,
1988).
5.2 Overview
Some of the commonly used techniques for gathering Origin-Destination data are (Austroads, 1988):
Number plate survey
This technique involves observers recording the number plate of vehicles and the time at
which each vehicle passed the observer who are stationed at selected points in and around
the survey area. By matching the observations, the route taken by a vehicle can then be
determined. Information on how to conduct a number plate survey follows in Section 5.3.
Roadside interview technique
This technique involves directing vehicles into a roadside station where the drivers are asked
to respond to a preset questionnaire about the details of their trip. The interview should be
short, simple and unambiguous to both the interviewer and the interviewee. The principles of
good questionnaire design should be applied including only asking for information relevant to
the purpose of the survey.
Postcard survey
This technique involves directing vehicles into a roadside station where the drivers are
requested to take and complete a questionnaire, and then post back the completed copy. To
increase the response rate, it is recommended that the postage be reply-paid. This type of
survey returns similar data to roadside interviews, but a maximum of five questions is
recommended. A return of at least 20% is considered essential to ensure reasonable data.
Headlight survey
This technique involves asking drivers at a particular site to switch their headlights on and
keep them on for a set period or until asked to extinguish them. Observers are stationed at
downstream sites where they record the vehicles with headlights lit. This technique requires
high levels of public co-operation and can only be used in daylight hours. It should only be
applied in relatively simple networks.
Windscreen sticker technique
This technique is similar to the headlight survey, but provides opportunities for differentiation
of more separate origins by using different colours of stickers. This technique is commonly use
for studies involving movements away from large trip generators such as shopping centres or
sports fields. Stickers can be placed on parked vehicles, or handed out to patrons before they
leave the site. The stickers are then collected at designated survey cordon stations.
Registration address technique
This technique involves recording vehicle registrations and then checking the registered
address of each vehicle from official records. The registered address is assumed to be the
origin and/or destination. This technique has a significant problem in that there is an inherent
assumption that the registered address is the actual trip origin or destination.
Cordan A Cordan B
Y Y
X X
8 stations with data for external trips 14 stations with no data on external trips
known eg. X to Y eg. X to Y
Figure 5-1 Setting cordon station locations
Stations should also be located in a manner to as to remove possible ambiguities in the data. Figure
5-2 shows an example of a possible problem.
X X
Y Y Cordon D
Cordon C
Study Area Study Area
(a) Adopting Cordon C means that the left (b) Adopting Cordon D now means that the
turn from Y to X is outside the cordon and left turn from Y to X is now an internal
may either duplicate the data collected or movement with no data collected.
lead to problems of interpretation. This is
because the left turn (Y to X) may be
logically interpreted as a trip entering the
area at X and leaving the area at Y.
Figure 5-2 Example of possible ambiguities in data due to station location
When stations are located at junctions, observations should be made of each separate turning
movement as shown in Figure 5-3.
Station A Station A
For certain surveys, internal stations (ie. observation points inside the study area) may be required in
addition to the cordon line stations. Figure 5-4 shows that stations A, B, and C are internal stations, while X,
Y and Z are cordon line stations.
Y
X
A B C
Z
Cordon line stations X, Y and Z
Internal stations A, B and C
Figure 5-4 Internal and cordon line stations
5.3.2 Setting the Survey Time
The survey should be organised to cover the period of the day when divertible traffic will be observed such
as peak period flows in urban areas, or busy times at shopping centres. The duration of the survey must
cover the period when divertible traffic will be observed. There is further requirement which relates to the
possibilities for mismatching of vehicle observations due to start up and close down non-matching errors,
as outlined in Section 5.4.2.
5.3.3 Setting the Sample Rate
Usually it is not possible to record the registration numbers of all vehicles, so in practice a subset of the total
flow is chosen. It is important that the subset is chosen such that surveyors at all points can record 100% of
the subset (TRL, 1993). Sampling of number plates is usually performed on the basis of a specified digit,
such as the last digit of the number plate. If sampling is based on the last digit, say 4, the sampling rate is
one in ten (10%). If sampling is based on the two different last digits, say 1and 2, then the sampling rate is
one in five (20%). It is recommended to select a digit which is less likely to be confused with others, such as
1or 4. Digits such as 6, 8or 9 are poor choices as they are more likely to be confused with others.
5.3.4 Selecting the Characters to be Recorded
The number of characters on the number plate to be recorded is a compromise between the effort in
recording all (or nearly all) of the characters, which results in little duplication of number plates, and
recording a few characters, which gives high recording accuracy but frequent duplication. Good practice is to
record four characters, not including the sampling character, which yields more than 26 000 permutations,
depending on the number of digits or letters possible. It should be noted that most errors and consequent
mismatchings are the result of misrecording number plates rather than spurious matchings (Austroads,
1988).
5.3.5 Field Data Collections
The following information should be recorded for each observation:
number plate (to a specified number of characters)
location of the observation station
direction of the vehicles travel
time of observation, and
the type of vehicle (optional)
Two surveyors are required at each observation station, one for each direction of traffic flow (TRL, 1993).
Recording may be done using paper and pencil, a cassette tape recorder, or a laptop computer. If there are
technical problems with the cassette tape recorder or laptop computer, the paper and pencil technique
provides an intelligible and reconstructable storage medium. Cassette recordings are useful for heavy flows
but are tedious to transcribe after the survey which can introduce its own special type of errors.
Using the cassette recording technique is one way of reducing staff requirements at the observation station.
For example, one person with a cassette recorder can undertake the same tasks as two people using the
paper and pencil technique.
It is important that no vehicles in the subset are missed. Methods which can be used to ensure no vehicles
are missed include:
using a separate surveyor for each sample digit.
using a separate surveyor for each vehicle class.
having one surveyor looking and shouting, and one recording, so traffic flow is continually
scanned.
Appendix A shows the standard form that should be used to undertake a registration number plate survey
using the floating car method. An example of a completed survey sheet is shown in Figure 5-5.
data more then likely outweigh errors due to spurious matching, certainly if at least four characters of the
number plates are observed.
60
Two Survey Stations
50
40
30
20
10
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Travel Time (Minutes)
A B
H C
G D
F E
Destination
A B C D E F G H
A
B
C
Origin
D
E
F
G
H 116 261 319 218 261 131 87 58
Figure 5-7 Origin-destination (trip-interchange) matrix
8%
4% A B 18%
H C 22%
G D 15%
6% F E
9% 18%
% of destination: ?%
Figure 5-8 Desire line diagram
5.6 References
Addis Ababa City Roads Authority (AACRA), 2002, Pavement Maintenance Management System Data
Collection Manual, Addis Ababa City Administration, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Austroads, 1988, Guide to Traffic Engineering Practice, Part 3 Traffic Studies, Austroads, Sydney.
Transport Research Laboratory, 1993, Overseas Road Note 11 Urban Road Traffic Surveys, Overseas
Centre, Transport Research Laboratory, Crowthorne, Berkshire, United Kingdom.