Road Traffic Equipment and Analysis Laboratory
The Road Traffic Equipment and Analysis Laboratory (UETRAF) is part of the Planning, Traffic and Safety Unit (NPTS), of the Transportation Department of LNEC.
UETRAF was created in 2010 with a view to supporting the collection, validation, and organization of road traffic information in databases appropriate for supporting observational traffic studies, as required by LNEC’s research activities and external requests.
Additional information can be found in this laboratory's flyer.
Activity areas
UETRAF’s activity includes obtaining and managing information related to the road transport system operation, in what concerns to mobility, safety, economy and environment. This involves the acquisition and processing of information on roads, vehicles, traffic, among others.
The activity of UETRAF comprises three major lines:
- Tests on highways to collect data about their layout, vehicles, traffic and other complementary data;
- Collection of relevant public information for transport analysis;
- Management of the information collected in supporting databases.
Testing
The UETRAF performs, among others, the following field tests:
- vehicle class counts, as well as vehicle speed and headway measurement using video equipment;
- cross section distribution of traffic wheels using video equipment;
- spot speed measurement of individual vehicles, with RADAR or LIDAR;
- manual tracking of road users’ movements at intersections;
- automatic collection of key road traffic characteristics using portable devices installed on the pavement surface;
- automatic collection of key road traffic characteristics using roadside installed portable devices;
- transport passenger counting and origin-destination surveys;
- measurement of road design characteristics;
- observation of traffic conflicts.
Main laboratory tests performed by UETRAF include the following:
- geocoding of road accidents;
- audits to safety reports prepared by road concessionaires;
- survey of vehicle trajectory from aerial photographs;
- detection of accident black spots.
Other services
In addition to the mentioned field and laboratory studies, which are usually within the scope of LNEC’s planned research and research contracted by external bodies, UETRAF also carries out activities in the following fields:
- Road accident investigation;
- Evaluation of the safety conditions of streets and roads;
- Planning safety related interventions on the road infrastructure and its environment.