CSO Frontier Series outputs may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release.
Learn more about CSO Frontier Series outputs.
Gavin Kelly, Statistician, said: “This research paper illustrates the potential of the TII’s traffic count database to produce detailed and timely official statistics at both national and local level. The volume and velocity of the TII data opens the possibility of producing national traffic statistics with an increased frequency. The key advantage of statistics based on traffic count data is that they accurately track national and local trends across economic sectors and can be produced in near real-time.
Results indicate that weekly traffic volumes across the country for 2022 remained below 2019 figures. Peak traffic times for the working week were different to those found on the weekend. During the working week traffic volumes peak at 8am and again in the evening at 5pm. At the weekend traffic volumes tend to peak around 1pm.
Additionally, cross-border travel remained below 2019 levels for most of 2022, with the exceptions of August, September, and November. The volume of buses recorded around selected tourist locations increased from Q1 to Q2 of 2022 but with some variations in the month of peak bus activity at different sites.”
Introduction
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (06 March 2023) published a research paper that presents a novel application of traffic count data from Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) by examining traffic patterns in Ireland pre- and post-COVID-19.
This research paper uses TII traffic count data to produce statistics of nationwide traffic activity. The TII employs Traffic Monitoring Units (TMU’s) across motorways, and national and regional roads to monitor traffic patterns in Ireland. The TMUs are equipped with technology which can accurately detect vehicle-type based on a combination of weight, distance between and number of vehicle axles. Each TMU records all daily traffic by vehicle type, and this data is aggregated into hourly counts which are received by the CSO via an Application Programming Interface (API). Those stored TII data are an example of big data. This research paper aims to showcase how traffic count data can be used to generate reliable and timely analysis on traffic volumes. The publication is based on an experimental and developing methodology. It is intended to illustrate the potential of big data to produce transport statistics. It should be noted that these are not the official transport statistics and should be used with caution.