| Principal Investigator | David Schrank |
| Final Report (DOI) | View Final Report |
| TRID | View TRID – 2026129 |
| Policy Brief | View Policy Brief |
Abstract
The Urban Mobility Report (UMR) has been providing information on urban congestion levels in the U.S. for more than three decades. The UMR uses private-sector crowdsourced speed data combined with traditional public-agency roadway inventory data to measure mobility conditions. The current UMR statistics describe overall congestion levels, but do not discriminate between causes of congestion. With the advent of improvements in the third-party provider data stream, it is now possible to quantify aspects of the mobility contribution provided by enhanced traffic signal systems. This project will use detailed crowdsourced travel time data collected by a private-sector vendor (INRIX) to report on the performance of traffic signal systems. Researchers will review and rank signal operations for urban areas by evaluating signal operations metrics obtained from crowdsourced data, such as arrivals on green and split failures. These metrics will enhance the evaluations that can be obtained from traditional metrics such as arterial street delay. Urban areas will be categorized using factors such as congestion levels, population and population density to ensure that any comparisons include contextual elements that are key to decision-maker understanding and messaging strategies. These traffic signal metrics will provide an approach to measure signal system contributions. For example, improved efficiencies on the streets will result in less delay and/or higher traffic throughput while the signal systems are improving performance. The 2021 Urban Mobility Reportwebsite will include an analysis of urban area signal performance. In subsequent years, the methods will be honed with feedback following the release of the information on the 2021 UMRwebsite. NICR will be shown as a 2021 Urban Mobility Report sponsor on the UMR website.
