I’m working with my neighbors to petition the city to add traffic calming measures (e.g. speed bumps, one way roads) to my street. I’m also hoping to turn it into a bit of a research project. Does anyone know of any tools to monitor or even automate data collection of the speeds of cars, number of cars going by, how many actually stop at intersections/stop signs, etc? If we’re successful with the petition, I think it would be nice to be able to present some data from before and after the traffic calming measures are put in place. Thank you in advance!
My garmin bike computer + garmin varia radar can do this.
The thing about cars actually stopping will require either a video camera with a review of the footage afterwards, or a live volunteer.
Interesting! what data does it collect? Like: number of cars, their speed and distance from your bike? Does it give you aggregated statistics or data over time? Can you export it?
Could you maybe show me an example?
There are two radar data apps for the Varia that I know of, but DCrainmaker explains the more popular of the two here. The app has been updated since the article, so it’s better 🤗
When you are actually on a bike ride, you can see the real-time stats of approaching cars, their relative and absolute speeds, distance, etc.
It’s pretty amazing.
Thank you! Very good insight. It’s expensive stuff, but it can be worth it
Yes, it can be expensive. If you cycle, it’s worth the investment.
As an alternative, which may work for the OP’s application, is an inexpensive sports radar used for measuring the speed of baseballs, golfballs, hockey pucks, etc.
Some will give you the option to log and export the data, so you’d at least have speed and # of captures (I.e. cars) that pass.
The only disadvantage I see vs the bike radar, is that a sports radar might not do well when there are multiple cars passing at one time. A bike radar can detect and separate vehicles in a cluster.