Advances in Traffic Data Collection and Management: White Paper

This white paper identifies innovative approaches for improving data quality through Quality Control. Quality Control emphasizes good data by ensuring selection of the most accurate detector then optimizing detector system performance. This is contrasted with Quality Assurance, which identifies defective data (and then attempts to fix it) rather than ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the equipment. The approaches for improving data through Quality Control contained in this paper include innovative contracting methods, standards, training for data collection, data sharing between agencies and states, and advanced traffic detection techniques.