Traffic counts help the Washtenaw County Road Commission (WCRC) assess areas of growth and plan transportation projects that best serve the motoring public. Traffic counts are an essential element of many design projects and traffic engineering studies, including those that determine traffic signals and multi-way stops.

Traffic counts are taken by placing a pair of rubber hoses across the road.  When a vehicle crosses over the hoses air pulses are sent to an automatic traffic recorder. Some traffic counts are able to determine vehicles’ classification (such as commercial vehicles) and measure their speed. Typical traffic counts are taken over a 24-hour period and take into account both directions of travel.

WCRC stores all available traffic counts in an online database through a partnership with the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG). The database is open to the public and can be searched by township, road name, or volume. Questions about how to use the database can be answered by clicking on the Help Icon at the top of the database web page.

To visit WCRC’s traffic count database, click here.