Follow-up: traffic data

[magid]

Yesterday afternoon I found a second cable, crossing Beacon St. just west of Charles St., and this morning there was one crossing Berkeley St. just north of Marlborough St. Both of these were single cables, unlike the pair over the pepperpot bridge.

According to the Mass Highway Authority, there are four kinds of counts,

1. continuous:
   "The continuous count program consists of 216 stations of which 182 are being counted hourly every day of the year."
   (Why have the others that are not being counted, I have no idea.)
   
2. coverage:
   "The coverage count program consists of a total of 2305 counts spread across a three year counting cycle. This year's program consisted of 660 counts, of which the Regional Planning Agencies were responsible for 178. Each traffic count is of a 48 hour duration and is repeated once every three years."
   (I believe this is referencing 2005 as "this year".)
   
3. classification:
   "The classification count program consisted of a total of 332 counts. Each traffic count is of a 48 hour duration."
   
4. special:
   "All requests for traffic related data come under this program and includes providing traffic data for the Department's pavement, highway and bridge design efforts. This Includes pavement rehabilitation, construction, maintenance, construction staging and traffic management. Data gathered in support of the Department's program varies from single road tube automatic traffic recorder counts (of which there were 653 this year) to intersection turning movements for traffic signal design and vehicle type classification for pavement design and environmental analyses (air quality and noise levels)."

I'm guessing that the double cable over the bridge means that it's a 'special' count.


And just because it amused me, yesterday's best spam subject line: A fauntleroy, a grand panjandrum.
Plus a link via Hrafn: amazing things done with sheets of paper carefully cut.