RIMS (Roading Infrastructure Management Support) is a special interest group of IPWEA NZ, the peak body for infrastructure and asset management professionals in Aotearoa New Zealand. The purpose of the Roading Infrastructure Management Support (RIMS) group is to actively support the industry by providing best practice guidance across all areas of road asset and information management.
In March 2022, RIMS endorsed and published the Traffic Monitoring Estimation Guidelines. The guidelines were created following the release of a report titled ‘Traffic Monitoring Estimation Update Guidelines – Best Practice Review’ which highlighted the range of different methodologies used across the industry, as a result of varied road networks and individual practices.
Traffic estimation is important, feeding into several different aspects of transportation planning and asset and network management.
The Traffic Monitoring Estimation Guidelines aim to help asset managers by creating one clear process to follow to assign estimates to their roading network. They are targeted at local authority networks which tend to have many different types of roads as well as fewer counts per kilometre. Additional emphasis is placed on sampling to estimate traffic flows. By contrast, state highway networks have fewer roads and often more counts to generate estimates.
The purpose of the guidelines is to outline a process, while also detailing many of the methods used in the industry for updating traffic estimates in RAMM. The content of the document reflects the varied practices in industry, as well as the variability and complexity of each road network, whilst aiming to create a common process to follow for assigning estimates.
The guidelines provide 10 areas of guidance summarised briefly below:
- Update database with latest counts
- New sections / sections with no estimate
- Establishing Road Types and Traffic Groups
- Estimating sections with counts since the last estimate
- Estimating sections with adjacent counts
- Estimating sections with no recent or adjacent counts
- Traffic mix
- Auditing
- Generating or Reviewing Links
- Count strategy
REG Traffic Count Estimation Tool
To support the use of the Traffic Monitoring Estimation Guidelines, the Road Efficiency Group (REG) has developed an interim Traffic Count Estimation Tool within the REG Insights web portal for use by the Road Controlling Authorities (RCAs) in Aotearoa New Zealand. The software, which is currently in a pilot phase, is based on the Traffic Monitoring Estimation Best Practice Guidelines and is intended to help RCAs to assign estimates to their own networks.. This software, along with the guidelines, will ensure a consistent and best practice approach across local authority networks.
The Traffic Count Estimation Tool is being piloted by six councils across Aotearoa, with a mix of rural and urban RCAs. If you would like to be updated with progress of the tool, or be notified of its availability once ready, please register your interest with reg@nzta.govt.nz
Traffic Management Micro-credential
IPWEA NZ offer micro-credential training designed to increase asset management competencies in line with the IIMM and the ISO 55000.
Traffic Management 401 was designed in collaboration with Beca to help you and your team understand the principles of traffic monitoring strategies and traffic estimation for road networks, aligned with the International Infrastructure Management Manual (IIMM). TM 401 includes information on how data is collected, how to set up a data collection strategy and programme and how to estimate traffic flows across your network using the collected data. The digital badge is suitable for RCA transportation asset managers, consultants and contractors who are responsible for traffic monitoring strategies, programmes and updating estimates. This digital badge supports the new Traffic Monitoring Estimation Guidelines, and provides an interactive opportunity for improving competency within traffic management teams.
