Temporal Analysis of Commercial Vehicle Fleet Behavior in High Traffic Highway in Brazil

The traffic data obtained from counts of vehicles at toll booths on highways under concession provide rich historical information about the traffic characteristics on a specific highway. The analysis, during periods over ten years, brings to light true definition about information taken normally by subjectivity or intuition, in many cases. The paper aims to spot the behavior of traffic, assessing year by year the evaluation of volumes and types of vehicles for a period of fourteen years at toll booths of Presidente Dutra Highway - BR-116, between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Growths and reductions in commercial vehicles, sorted by number of axles, are presented. There are characteristics to be highlighted, as the use of vehicles with six or more axles which use could have grown over this period and few reductions, most of the time discrete, of conventional vehicles. This work also spots the question of growth of traffic rates, since the historical data make it possible to obtain more reliable parameters for pavement design. Finally, ithe paper presents the range of traffic volumes that occur at five of the Presidente Dutra Highway toll booths and the relationship between traffic growth and the economic index Gross Domestic Product.