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Mexico - Where to find highway data

Started by kphoger, September 02, 2020, 12:24:59 PM

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kphoger

Below is a primer on how to find and interpret highway data for Mexican highways.




Official Maps

Official maps of each federal entity (31 states plus Mexico City), as well as one of all Mexico, can be found at http://www.sct.gob.mx/planeacion/cartografia/mapas-digitales-2016/.  These maps are dated 2016;  I'm not aware of a more recent edition at this time.




Traffic Counts

At the time I'm writing this, traffic counts can be found at http://www.sct.gob.mx/carreteras/direccion-general-de-servicios-tecnicos/datos-viales/.  From there, under the Secciones heading, click on the year you're interested in.  This will bring up the following resources:

(1)  Introducción – This is an introduction on how to read the traffic counts.  Please see (3) below for my English translation of each point.

(2)  Estaciones Permanentes – This is a list of permanent traffic count devices, which are all at toll booths.  It includes more detailed vehicle classifications than what is contained in the general state data.

Just below the location map, all permanent traffic count locations are listed.



Below that list is a data table for each location.



(3)  A list of the 32 federal entities of Mexico.

Just above the map is a list of highways, listed by key/index number.  Below the map is a data table for each highway.



Below all the data tables are histograms for each highway.

Keep right except to pass.  Yes.  You.
Visit scenic Orleans County, NY!
Male pronouns, please.

Quote from: Philip K. DickIf you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.


kphoger

Next up:  Capacity and service level of federal highways.  This is a huge document, so preparing a primer will take some time...
Keep right except to pass.  Yes.  You.
Visit scenic Orleans County, NY!
Male pronouns, please.

Quote from: Philip K. DickIf you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.

kphoger

To give an example of how to use the AADT data, let's use the example of the highway highlighted in yellow below.  This is from the SCT map of Coahuila.



The first step is to go to the "Datos Viales" page I linked to.  I then click on 2020, then Coahuila.  This opens a .pdf file of Coahuila's highway data.

I scroll down to the map page, and identify that the highway in question has Index Number 47.



Scrolling back up, I can see that this is part of the Red Estatal Libre (the system of non-tolled state highways) and that the route number is COA-105.  Note that some state highways are unnumbered, some have strange numbers, and this varies widely by state.  The name of this particular highway is T. C. (Ent. Morelos - Saltillo) - Parras de La Fuente.

Abbreviations to help you out
Ent. = Entronque = Interchange
T. C. = Entronque carretero = Highway interchange
X. C. = Cruce carretero = Highway crossroads
T. Der. = Entronque derecha = Junction to the right
T. Izq. = Entronque izquierda = Junction to the left

So this highway's name in English would be Highway Interchange (Morelos—Saltillo Interchange) – Parras de la Fuente.  These are the two endpoints of the highway in question.



Scroll down the data tables to table #47.

In this case, there are three locations and five data points.

The first location is KM 0.00, identified as T. C. Morelos — Saltillo, which I've outlined in brown.  The station type (TE) is listed as 3, which means it's counting downstream traffic only (traffic to the west in this case).  For the first count, the direction of traffic (SC) is listed as 1 (up the chain, i.e. increasing km-posts and down the table):  westbound traffic in this case.  For the second count, the direction of traffic (SC) is listed as 2 (down the chain, i.e. decreasing km-posts and up the table):  eastbound traffic in this case.  Perhaps I should have translated those terms differently...

The second location is KM 40.00, identified as Gral. Cepeda, which is a town.  For this one, the direction of traffic (SC) is the same–0, which means both directions together–but the first count is upstream (1) and the second is downstream (3) of the count location.



And finally, let's scroll down to histogram #57.

Here you can see that the first two histograms correspond to KM 0.00, and that Tuesday—Thursday have steady traffic counts, and that Sunday—Monday have the lowest counts.  At the other end, in the town of Parras de la Fuente (KM 102.00), traffic counts are more constant throughout the week.

Keep right except to pass.  Yes.  You.
Visit scenic Orleans County, NY!
Male pronouns, please.

Quote from: Philip K. DickIf you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.



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