Bicycle and Pedestrian Travel in Chittenden County Vermont: Part III

In the first part of this project, a Transportation Research Center (TRC) team gathered automated hourly pedestrian counts from a sidewalk in downtown Montpelier, Vermont to determine if temperature, relative humidity, precipitation and wind affect the number of walkers. The researchers found that, after adjusting for time of day and day of week, weather and seasonal variables explained 30 percent of the variations in pedestrian volume -- and that bad weather such as cold temperature or precipitation consistently affected walking traffic, but by only a moderate amount (less than 20 percent). For the next part of this project, hourly distributions of non-motorized traffic data at 9 locations along shared-use paths in Chittenden County, Vermont were investigated for a linkage between total daily volumes, daily distributions, and surrounding land-use. The analysis failed to reveal significant variations in the hourly distributions relative to the land-use proximate to the count location. The findings were then used to identify temporal and spatial gaps to provide a robust, heterogeneous data set for non-motorized travel modeling and exposure estimation. Additional regression analyses was also conducted on a separate set of intersection-based non-motorized traffic counts to determine more generally if a connection exists between pedestrian and biking volumes and proximate land use. A geographically-weighted regression was performed which was sensitive to spatial autocorrelation in the dependent and independent variables. The University of Vermont (UVM) TRC is currently developing a new method of collecting non-motorized travel counts in rural locations, using a closed-circuit camera. This new method is being used to collect counts at the 18 new locations in support of the calculation of total bike and pedestrian miles of travel (BPMTs) in the County.

• Record URL:
  http://www.uvm.edu/trc/university-transportation-center/utc-current-project-list/bicycle-and-pedestrian-travel-in-chittenden-county-vermont-part-iii-work-plan/
• Supplemental Notes:
  • http://www.uvm.edu/~transctr/research/trc_reports/UVM-TRC-13-014.pdf http://www.uvm.edu/~transctr/research/trc_reports/UVM-TRC-13-014.pdf

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $37198.00
• Contract Numbers:

  DTRT06-G-0018

  026548

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  University Transportation Centers Program
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Troy, Austin

  Aultman-Hall, Lisa

• Performing Organizations:

  UVM Transportation Center

  University of Vermont
  210 Colchester Avenue
  Burlington, VT  United States  05405
• Principal Investigators:

  Sullivan, James

• Start Date: 20110901
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20130501
• Source Data: RiP Project 29081

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bicycle travel; Intersection elements; Nonmotorized transportation; Pedestrian movement; Pedestrian traffic; Walking; Weather conditions
• Geographic Terms: Chittenden County (Vermont)
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Operations and Traffic Management; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01566291
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: UVM Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: DTRT06-G-0018, 026548
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Jun 13 2015 1:00AM