Non-Motorized Facility Data Collection for Large Networks: Methods, Accuracy, and Application

Transportation Performance Management is a strategic approach that uses system information to make investment and policy decisions to achieve national performance goals. While mandated by MAP-21Transportation Performance Management has been practiced by Departments of Transportation for years. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is expanding its efforts to be more comprehensive for non-motorized modes. They want to be able to answer such questions as • How many miles of non-motorized facilities are on their system? • Where are the facilities? • What types of facilities are they – bike lanes, shoulders, paths, sidewalks? • What is the level of service (LOS)on these facilities? FDOT wanted to develop a method to make collecting and reporting this information a standard part of operating procedures. This paper discusses a first step, evaluation of a method of collecting comprehensive roadway data relevant to the bicycle and pedestrian modes for its Roadway Characteristics Inventory database. The project revised the Department’s RCI Features Handbook to describe necessary data and methods for collecting them. Due to the three-year cycle of inventory updates via field data collection, and growing requests for non-motorized facility data and analysis, a methodology for data collection from existing Department documents and imagery sources was proposed and pilot tested. Accuracy was found to be within six inches for critical dimensions on over 70% of the validated segments. This accuracy gave the Department the confidence to proceed with this methodology to populate the database with image-derived data for the entire state. The application of this research has been immediate. The protocol developed now guides the FDOT data collection (through FDOT’s data collection handbook) of location, extent, width, and designation status for multiple features including shoulders, bike lanes (standard, colored and buffered), bicycle slots at intersections, outside lanes, shared lane markings, sidewalks, sidewalk buffers and roadside shared paths. The data collected has already facilitated a variety of reporting functions such as the Bicycle and Pedestrian LOS results for the entire state highway system. It is being used in FDOT Districts to close gaps in the non-motorized transportation network and to inform route choices for US Bicycle Routes in Florida.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABJ35 Highway Traffic Monitoring.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Petritsch, Theodore A
  • Fellerhoff, Christopher B
  • Kubicki, John P
  • Scorsone, Tyrone
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2015-1-11 to 2015-1-15
• Date: 2015

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: 17p
• Monograph Title: TRB 94th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bicycle facilities; Data collection; Image processing; Methodology; Network analysis (Planning); Pedestrian areas
• Identifier Terms: Florida Department of Transportation
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01555288
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 15-2254
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 26 2015 10:05AM