Transport & Active Modes count
The West Yorkshire Combined Authority have recently embarked upon Transport and Active Mode (TAM) Counts. This is a snapshot based, long term count of aggregated highway use covering walking, cycling and motorised traffic across West Yorkshire, with focus on minor roads.
With the climate emergency, sustainable travel objectives and pandemic recovery, West Yorkshire Combined Authority and partners have ambitious targets for walking and cycling. In order to track progress against these targets it is necessary to have robust monitoring data to report on strategic trends with credibility.
Existing transport monitoring typically focuses on peak demand and areas with specific needs such as accident hotspots or scheme locations. While minor roads make up the majority of our local highway network, most existing monitoring occurs on the major road network. Aside from permanent counters installed as part of schemes like City Connect, there are no long term and widespread methods of collecting unbiased regional data on cycle usage or walking levels. Department for Transport (DfT) data on the minor road network is estimation based with several limitations. Combined, these factors result in a substantial gap in our knowledge.
The survey methodology counts motorised and non-motorised highway users for seven days. Sites are surveyed at a rate of around 25 per month across West Yorkshire, with each site surveyed once per year on a rotating basis to provide a count in every month to capture seasonal effects. Some A-roads have been selected to allow benchmarking against existing data sets. In order to provide a strategic view across the district, locations have been selected based on one site per Middle Super Output Area (MSOA) to enable a representative sample across West Yorkshire. This approach balances cost versus a robust sample count.
The overall programme duration is intended to be 12 years although the current commission with Tracsis runs for 3 years, with a 1 year break clause. Data collection started in July 2023 following consultation with Chief Highway Officers and relevant local authority officers. The technology to be deployed is temporary CCTV equipment. This is the most cost efficient solution to enable a multi-modal count including non-motorised users, with the footage having a resolution which is adequate to count highway users but not for identification of individuals. The Combined Authority receives the aggregated count values only – we do not have access to the recorded footage, which is held by the survey company for counting followed by destruction after their standard retention period. The privacy notice for this work is available via the link below:
Privacy Notice - TAM
For more information about this please contact West Yorkshire Combined Authority Research and Intelligence team (TAM@westyorks-ca.gov.uk).