Deployment of Inductive Loop Vehicle Traffic Counters Along Trunk Roads in Tanzania

Abstract

As Tanzania's population grows, there is a greater demand for efficient, effective, and strong road design, as well as a smooth transportation system with a balanced traffic management network architecture. To plan for maintenance and expansion of such a vast network, a credible data inventory and network condition must be established. The deployment of vehicle inductor loop counters along Tanzanian trunk roads is presented in this paper. At test sites, inductor loop sensors and control cards were used to capture vehicle traffic data, which was then wirelessly sent using GSM technology for vehicle classification verification and storage for future road traffic management. The traffic count statistics from selected test sites acquired by the base station monitoring software were examined in real-time and the findings over a one-year period were provided. According to the study's findings, inductive loop vehicle counter technology can count and categorize vehicles along a section of roadway and provide reliable performance indicators for monitoring progress at the local, state, and national levels. The vehicle traffic data collected by this system will be used to project future situations within a transportation system and to keep a record of historical trends that will be used to project into the future what is likely to happen based on actual observations of the past and using other socio-economic data obtained from census information or economic indicators.

Keywords: Inductor loop; vehicle traffic counters; GSM technology; trunk roads; traffic data