Applicability of an automatic pneumatic–tube–based traffic counting device for collecting data under mixed traffic

Traffic volume and composition data can be collected using several techniques such as manual, camera video recordings and automatic traffic count devices installed across the road pavement. An automatic traffic count device is often used for long hours of traffic data collection exercises. In view that the accuracy of the data is an important aspect of data analysis, this paper discusses the applicability of an automatic traffic count device to be used for traffic volume and composition data collections based on Malaysian vehicle classification system, i.e. where traffic is characterised by various types of vehicles or mixed traffic. The automatic traffic count (ATC) used in the study was the pneumatic tube-based equipment known as Metrocount@5600. The data used for validating the ATC was obtained using a video recording technique. The data was collected at four different sites to ensure the result of the analysis is reliable. A video camera and ATC were installed at each of the sites considered in the study. Traffic volumes and compositions from video recordings were extracted manually based on five classes of vehicles, i.e. cars and small vans, medium trucks and lorries with two axles, large trucks and lorries with three and more axles, buses and motorcycles. The ATC was set to classify vehicle types using one of the equipment's default setting, i.e. 13 classes (Scheme F). The data retrieved from the ATC was reorganised based on the vehicle classifications used in the data collected using the video recording technique. Twenty datasets of vehicles composition from four sites were used in the analysis. The result of the statistical analysis showed that there is no significant different in traffic volumes and compositions obtained using both techniques. The finding implies that an automatic pneumatic-tube-based traffic counting device such as MetroCount@5600 with scheme F can be used as an alternative technique to collect traffic volumes and compositions data based on five standard classes of vehicles classification system.