(Undated)– Expect to see some additional personnel from the Iowa Department of Transportation in the region in coming weeks. Each year the agency targets a specific quadrant of the state to collect information on the number of cars, trucks and other vehicles using roadways. Mark Hansen, a transportation planner with the Iowa D.O.T, says this year the attention will be on northwest Iowa…
“We’ll have manual traffic counters sitting at intersections throughout northwest Iowa counting and classifying vehicles at that particular intersection. We’ll also have the black pneumatic tube that goes across the roadway. I always tell people it goes ka-thump when you drive over them. It looks like a garden hose that goes across the roadway. It’s actually connected to a recorder that’s over on the side of the road that is counting the traffic for us.”
Hanson says the data that’s collected is important for future planning…
“It helps the D.O.T and the cities and counties prioritize projects. We like to put our money where there is a true need, if there’s a safety concern or if there is a lot of traffic, we can look at the traffic levels to focus maintenance needs on or safety needs on.”
He adds you may see some of the counting operations going on at odd times of the day…
“Some of the people may work odd hours. They may be out there in the middle of the evening, the middle of the night. We do that to avoid traffic. There is a safety element to putting people on the roadway, so you may see them at abnormal times during the day.”
He says the counts will be getting underway in some areas as early as next week and will likely continue into the fall.
