Rodrigo Netto de Souza, a Lyles School of Civil Engineering student, participated in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Program during the summer of 2014.  His mentors for this project were Professor John Haddock, Laura Slusher (Indiana LTAP) and graduate student Yu Tian.

The Project:  Comparison of the Accuracy of Traffic Counting Devices.  Traffic counting devices are broadly used to assess travel patterns and the level of occupancy of roadway networks. An evaluation of the accuracy of these devices is of great importance.  Rodrigo evaluated the performance of two different models of traffic counters, each commonly used by the Indiana Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP). These devices were placed in eight different road segments with various traffic conditions. Vehicles were also hand-counted for two hours at each location. The accuracy of each device was then assessed.

The Results: The devices have a high level of accuracy when measuring traffic volumes and average vehicle speeds. However, both devices failed to provide satisfactory results in terms of vehicle classification, with significant detection errors for each model. The findings of this research will be helpful for local transportation agencies to manage traffic data.

Learn more about this project at:  http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/surf/2014/presentations/3/

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program brings undergraduate students into the modern research laboratories at Purdue, teams them with a faculty and graduate student mentor and introduces them to the research tools used on the cutting edges of science, engineering and technology.  For more information about the SURF program, visit https://engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/Research/SURF.