The paper describes a traffic census that was started in 1956. Fifty sites were chosen on a statistical basis so as to make them representative of all classified roads (including class III) in both urban and rural areas of Gret Britain. At each site an automatic counter giving daily totals of motor vehicles has been in operation continuously since January, 1956. Manual counts of three 16-hour days have been made monthly since January, 1958. Selected results of the census are given. These illustrate trends in traffic from year to year and from month to month, seasonal variations, variations from day to day, hourly patterns and the effect of weather on traffic. A detailed discussion is given on accuracy of the estimates of trends from year to year. (Author/publisher)
Abstract