Annual and Permanent Traffic Count Sites

The Cambridgeshire County Council Policy & Insight team monitor traffic flows across the county using a series of permanent sensors and annually-scheduled surveys. The map below shows the locations that are being monitored.

The amount of data collected varies depending on the type of monitoring being used. This ranges from continuously-collected automatically-classified counts to annual single-day surveys. The different types of data available are detailed below. You can identify the type of monitoring being used at each location by clicking the points on the map below or viewing the list.

Traffic Count Sites Map

• To determine whether data is available in your area of interest, please zoom in or search for a place name on the map below.
• Open the map legend using the button (>>) in the top left-hand corner of the map to see what each colour on the map represents. Turn layers on and off using the tick boxes.
• Map last updated: 14/12/2023.

 

The site locations shown on the map are also provided in an alternative format (csv file) here. Details about the type of data available from the different types of count sites are provided below:

Vivacity Sensors

• Permanent sensors anonymously counting pedestrians, cycles and motorised vehicles in 5-minute, 15-minute, hourly and daily intervals.
• Small no. locations have data available from 2019, most sites have data available from 2022 onwards.
• Historic data for the original sites in Cambridge (2019 to 2022) can be download from the Cambridgeshire Insight Open Data Portal.
• An exercise was undertaken in June 2022 to determine the level of accuracy of the local Vivacity sensors. The findings of this exercise are documented in the Vivacity Sensor Performance Monitoring note. The note helps to highlight differences in accuracy between the older ‘v1’ sensors and the newer ‘v2’ sensors and provides guidance on how best to work with the Vivacity data.
• As of December 2022, six of the local Vivacity sensors (Milton Road (s13), Coleridge Road (s3), Vinery Road (s4), Coldham’s Lane (s7), Devonshire Road cycle bridge (s12) and Hills Road (s14)) continue to use the older ‘v1’ hardware and are known to under-count pedestrians and cycles. Each sensor’s hardware version can be seen by clicking the Vivacity sites on the map above.
• As of December 2022, twelve of the older ‘v1’ sensors have been upgraded to ‘v2’ hardware which has resulted in higher numbers of pedestrians and cycles being detected. Active travel data at the upgraded sites is not comparable pre/post upgrade for this reason – the date of any upgrades can be seen by clicking the Vivacity sites on the map above, or they are listed below:
  • • • Cherry Hinton Road (s8/s40) – upgraded from v1 to v2 in Aug 2020.
      • Tenison Road (s5/s41) – upgraded from v1 to v2 in Aug 2020.
      • Station Road (s6/s42) – upgraded from v1 to v2 in Nov 2021.
      • Newmarket Road (s15/s43) – upgraded from v1 to v2 in Nov 2021.
      • Perne Road (s16/s44) – upgraded from v1 to v2 in Nov 2021.
      • Milton Road, North (s18/s60) – upgraded from v1 to v2 in June 2022.
      • Milton Road, South (s19/s61) – upgraded from v1 to v2 in June 2022.
      • Histon Road, North (s20/s62) – upgraded from v1 to v2 in June 2022.
      • Histon Road, South (s21/s63) – upgraded from v1 to v2 in June 2022.
      • Mill Road, East (s1/s125 – upgraded from v1 to v2 in Sept 2022.
      • Mill Road, West (s2/s126) – upgraded from v1 to v2 in Sept 2022.
      • East Road (s10/s127) – upgraded from v1 to v2 in Sept 2022.

TagMaster Cycle Sensors

• Permanent sensors anonymously counting cycles in 15-minute, 30-minute and hourly intervals.
• Data availability intermittent since 2010, most sites are active.
• Note some sensors are no longer active, see map for more details.
• Some historic data available to download here.

TagMaster Vehicle Sensors

• Permanent sensors anonymously counting motorised vehicles by type in 15-minute, 30-minute and hourly intervals.
• Data availability intermittent since 2010, most sites no longer active.
• Note some sensors are no longer active, see map for more details.
• Some historic data available to download here.

Annual Town Monitoring Survey

• Annual, one-day surveys in Oct/Nov. Anonymously counting pedestrians, cycles and motorised vehicles by type at half hourly intervals, 7am – 7pm.
• Data available from 1997 to present.

Annual Cambridge Radial Survey

• Annual, one-day surveys in Oct/Nov. Anonymously counting pedestrians, cycles and motorised vehicles by type at half hourly intervals, 7am – 7pm.
• Data available from 1997 to present.

Annual Cycle Route Monitoring Survey

• Annual, one-day surveys in Apr/May. Additional Oct/Nov data also collected in 2020 and 2021. Anonymously counting pedestrians and cycles only at half hourly intervals, 7am – 7pm.
• Data available from 1997 to present.

Annual Cambridge River Screenline Survey

• Annual, two-day surveys in Apr/May. Additional Oct/Nov data also collected in 2020 and 2021. Anonymously counting pedestrians, cycles and motorised vehicles by type at half hourly intervals, 7am – 7pm.
• Data available from 1997 to present.

Additional Census Sites Survey (2020, 2021, 2022)

• Two-week automatically classified count. Anonymous motorised vehicle count by vehicle type in 15-minute intervals.
• Oct/Nov data collected in 2020, 2021 and 2022 only.
  

  CaPCAM Survey sites (2023)

• In the summer of 2023, a range of transport surveys were undertaken across the county to inform the latest Cambridgeshire and Peterborough transport model (CaPCAM).
• The data from these surveys has been received in early 2024.
  • •  Automatic Traffic Counts (ATCs) – a count of traffic passing along a stretch of road, automatically classified by vehicle type at various locations across the county.
    • Manually classified turning counts (MCCs) – a count of traffic turning movements manually classified by vehicle type at various junctions across the county.

Other sources

• • Strategic Road Network counts are provided by National Highways: Highways England – WebTRIS – Map View
  • Department for Transport road traffic statistics: Map Road traffic statistics – Road traffic statistics (dft.gov.uk)
  • Department for Transport walking and cycling statistics: Walking and cycling statistics – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Requesting data from the CCC Policy & Insight team

If you would like to find out if we have traffic data available in or near to your area of interest, please use the map above.

If there is traffic data available in your area of interest, please contact the Policy & Insight team by emailing PolicyandInsight@cambridgeshire.gov.uk and state:

• the name of the type of dataset you are interested in
• the site name
• the year you are interested in
  (for example,  Annual Cycle Route Monitoring survey, site CCRM16, dates of interest: 2019, 2020 and 2021)

Note that requests from external parties will incur a charge of £150 + VAT per dataset.