Introduction
iNode’s Traffic Stats Module is a core component of SMATS’ analytics platform, providing a rich archive of historical vehicle movement data derived from real-world trips. The module transforms raw trip observations into actionable insights about speeds, travel times, traffic volumes, and network performance, enabling agencies to understand how their roadways have operated over days, months or years.
Metrics
Traffic Stats deliver the following metrics:
- Speeds:
- Average, median, harmonic, and percentile speed
- Speed variability (standard deviation)
- Travel times:
- Average, median, and percentile travel time
- Travel-time Planning Time Index (for reliability analysis)
- Estimated volume
Use cases
Understanding historical traffic patterns is essential for effective planning, policy development, and operational decision-making. The Traffic Stats Module equips transportation professionals, planners, and consultants with the ability to answer critical questions about network performance across a wide range of study types, such as:
- Evaluating corridor performance – Analyzing long-term speed, travel time, and reliability trends to guide investments and identify bottlenecks.
- Supporting congestion management strategies – Quantifying recurring and non-recurring congestion patterns to inform operational improvements.
- Informing signal retiming programs – Using historical and current travel-time patterns to evaluate signal timing effectiveness, including conducting before-and-after studies following retiming or operational changes.
- Conducting speed and safety assessments – Screening for high-speed locations, speed variability, and potential safety risks.
- Estimating traffic volumes – Leveraging probe-derived indicators to support planning-level volume estimation where traditional counts are limited.
- Measuring travel-time performance – Understanding route efficiency, reliability, and user experience across different times of day or seasons.
Key components and workflows
The Traffic Stats Module makes it easier to analyze various metrics through a guided workflow, ensuring flexibility while keeping studies easy to set up:
- Study type selection – Choose from different interface options, including Area Traffic Stats, and Route Traffic Stats, to align the analysis with your objectives.
- Network Selection – Select the geographic boundary for your study, from specific segments to individual cities to entire regions.
- Date range and time set selection – Define precise ranges to capture short-term events or long-term patterns.
- Map selection – Visualize your road networks through Orbis or Genenis maps.
- Order confirmation – Review your study parameters, including expected sample size and credit usage, before finalizing.
- Result delivery – Access comprehensive result pages with clear summaries, visualizations, and data exports for deeper analysis.
Data sources
At its core, iNode’s Traffic Stats Module is powered by high-resolution GPS probe data. Data is collected from:
- Connected GPS devices
- Embedded vehicle telematics systems
- GPS-enabled mobile phones
This data is continuously archived, creating a robust historical traffic database. The result is a rich, scalable foundation for origin-destination studies that combines real-time insights with long-term context, making the OD Module a central component of iNode - an advanced traffic data analytics platform.
Data availability and updates
Traffic Stats data is continuously updated as it moves through iNode’s processing pipeline, where it is cleaned, aggregated, and validated to ensure consistent, reliable results. Data is typically available with a one-day lag, meaning studies can be submitted for as recent as yesterday or today; however, to achieve optimal sample sizes and the highest data quality, we recommend waiting up to 72 hours before submitting a study, as some GPS data providers deliver data with delays beyond 24 hours.