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Special Solutions

Most people think of cars on a street or highway when you mention traffic studies. But we’ve also been able to help customers in some less common situations.

Countering Bicycles

By default, a counter is set up to count the relatively large, strong air pulses from a car or truck tire running over the road tube. Pulses from bicycles, which are much lighter and have very narrow tires, would usually be ignored as echoes. The air switch sensitivity in TimeMark counters can be adjusted to allow those strikes to be counted.

Driveways

These can be tricky because vehicles may be turning as they come in and out. If both tires on an axle don’t cross the tube at the same time, two strikes might be counted instead of one. Our counters have an adjustable air switch dead time that prevents a sensor from recording anything else for a short time after a strike is recorded. This can reduce the number of echoes recorded as well as double strikes. But if the counter dead time is set too long, good strikes will be ignored and permanently lost. So we also have a software dead time that is only used when a file is analyzed. This setting can be adjusted as many times as you need to find the right timing to skip double strikes without losing any data.

Speed Complaints

No police department can afford to have a patrol car on every street where someone might be speeding. One solution is to put out a counter instead. If there is a report of someone is speeding through a neighborhood about the same time every weekday, a speed study can confirm that. Then an officer can plan to be in the right place at the right time. The occasional presence of a counter and road tubes may also be enough to deter speeders.

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