Photo by Jake Blucker on Unsplash
Updated: 11/2021. The only time of year that I’m actually happy about traffic is when we get updated traffic data for our reports. Below are 52 of my favorite sources of traffic data that you can use to visualize the AADT or annual average daily traffic that drives past your business (yay!) or past your home (boo!). Let’s start with a table of traffic count data sources from state departments of transportation — DOTs for short.
State DOT Traffic Counts Resources
The DOT datasets above hit the data sleuthing jackpot in that they are free traffic count data sources as well as trustworthy and fairly current. If you have to have 2021 data, skip to the What traffic count data do we use in Cubit’s reports & maps? section below. It can be a bit of pain to incorporate DOT traffic data into your business documents, but it’s nothing that you can’t solve with a good GIS (mapping software) or worst-case scenario, a screen capture tool.
Need traffic counts for the entire US?
DOT traffic count data are by definition just for 1 state, but some projects require multi-state traffic counts. The Federal Highway Administration provides spatial data for traffic counts for the entire US. The last time I emailed them (November 2021), the shapefiles contained 2019 AADT. I really like the FHWA data, but what I hear from my clients is that there’s a huge learning curve to working with shapefiles. So if you aren’t already familiar with shapefiles, consider sticking with the state DOT resources in the table above or working with us at Cubit to build you a custom map with traffic data.
Don’t have time to learn about AADT, GIS, shapefiles, etc.?
I hear you! Sure, you could pull traffic data yourself. Or for $124, you can get a radius report with traffic data. In fact, our clients order more traffic data reports than any other radius report customization – it’s that popular! Since 2009, these same clients outsource these data pulling tasks and research to us at Cubit so they can focus on building their businesses.
What traffic count data do we use in Cubit’s reports & maps?
Unlike most of our demographic data that comes directly from government data sources, we use current (2021) traffic estimates from Kalibrate, a private data vendor, first because:
- Kalibrate sources their data from public & private data sources. This means that for certain areas, they have more traffic counts than public data sources alone.
- Kalibrate’s data are consistent across states. If you need a radius report in New York City where you want to see traffic counts for both New York and New Jersey, your traffic data will be consistent rather than using 2020 New York data versus 2019 New Jersey data.
Second, if the Kalibrate traffic data doesn’t have enough current traffic counts for a particularly rural area, then we double-check with either the federal dataset or the state DOT datasets (above). So you get the best of both worlds – current data from a private data source supplemented by government data.
Got questions about traffic counts? Email me, because I’m here to help.