NRA Transportation Surveys

Derek Brady & Nigel O’Neill, July 2011

NRA activities generating Transportation Surveys

• Roads Projects• National Roads Traffic Management Study• National Secondary Roads Needs Study.• NRA Project Appraisal Guidelines (PAG).• NRA National Traffic Model• NRA Automatic Traffic Counter Network

Local Authority Transportation Surveys for National Road Schemes

• O/D & Count Surveys are carried out for Local Authorities who are the client for almost all road schemes on National Roads

• Collection, storage and quality control of survey information is with individual Local Authorities

• Probably will not be significant volumes of survey information acquired through this means in the near future.

• PAG (incorporating DoT’s CAF 2009) Appraisal deliverables are the “transportation interface” between L.A.s and NRA. This includes Transportation Modelling Reports, CBA & Business Case material.

Dunkettle Junction Improvement

• NRA is Contracting Authority • Initial intention to collect February 2011 origin

destination data by Road Side Interview (RSI)• An Garda Síochána unable to facilitate roadside

surveys• Revised survey approach: postcards were handed

out to drivers stopped at signalised junctions• Low number of survey samples returned

NRA Transportation Study Surveys

• NRA NTM. Collected significant volume of RSI, Count data, Journey Time info in 2006/2007.

• NSRNS. Collected further Count data/Journey Time data to validate NTM for Study in 2009. Also utilised 2005 GPS data to establish Journey Times.

• NRTMS. Collected counts/speeds/reg.-plate matching to develop M50 and radial models for traffic management.

Cycling Surveys 2010• Original motivation: Need to appraise cycling and walking facilities

proposed as general improvement to National Secondary Roads• Wanted to predict demand based upon simple household

characteristics (from An Post’s GEODirectory) and not rely on an estimate of incremental change on existing demand.

• For CBA, alongside health and absenteeism benefits, needed to quantify the users’ perception of reduced danger – journey ambience.

• Survey data was collected from three different locations (Greystones, Passage West & Tullamore). A questionnaire was used to carry out both household surveys and intercept surveys on the walking and cycling facilities themselves.

NRA Traffic Count Infrastructure

• Ownership and Management of ATC infrastructure with the NRA

• Tender competition currently underway for significant upgrading and expansion of ATC network.

• NRA ATC data has been posted on NRA website for almost 10 years and will continue to be made available publicly.