Traffic Levels on Rural Interstates

[CtrlAltDel]

Does anyone know, or at least know where I might find, how traffic levels on rural Interstate highways vary from day to day and from month to month, at least on the average? Are there, for example, more vehicles on the road during the week or on the weekend? Or during the summer versus the winter?

Also, how does traffic vary over the course of the day? My assumption would be that traffic levels reflect something similar to rush hours in cities, but maybe there are more people on the rural Interstates in the middle of the afternoon, relatively speaking, since there are more people making long-distance trips.

[froggie]

You'll have to look to the individual states to find what you're looking for.  Automated Traffic Recorders (or something of the like) would be your best bet, if such information is available from a given state (I know MnDOT's are).  IIRC, Mississippi offers something similar in their "Selected Statistics" report.

[Flint1979]

I know that I-75 in Michigan is the busiest expressway in the state in the Detroit area but when it gets to the rural areas such as north of Bay City it's just a normal rural expressway traffic wise. Middle of the day would probably be the busiest with almost all the traffic just passing through the area, later at night it's usually pretty dead on the Interstate's around here. I-75 north of the Mackinac Bridge to Sault Ste. Marie is pretty low traffic volume, probably the lowest in the state.

I-75 goes from six lanes, to eight lanes, back to six lanes, then to four lanes between two interchanges near Flint, back to six lanes, then eight lanes from Flint to Saginaw, back to six lanes for a few miles, then it's eight lanes across the Zilwaukee Bridge with the two right lanes on each side being exit and entrance ramps, then after you cross the bridge it goes back to eight lanes for about 10 miles, then at the M-13 connector it goes down to four lanes which is it most of the way to Sault Ste. Marie.

[CtrlAltDel]

I did find the following:

http://depts.washington.edu/trac/bulkdisk/pdf/VVD_CLASS.pdf

Dating to 1997, it is a bit of an older document, but it does confirm a lot of the suspicions mentioned in this thread. In particular, car traffic on rural Interstates grows throughout the morning and afternoon, peaking at about 6pm, and then it declines fairly quickly until the next morning.

What confuses me, though, is that long-distance truck traffic is essentially constant throughout all hours of the day and night (see figure 6). That does not jibe with my observations. In particular, truck stops and rest areas are a lot more full at nights than they are during the day, which would suggest some higher degree of variation, at least to my mind.

If anyone knows what's going on there, I'm all ears.

[SectorZ]

What confuses me, though, is that long-distance truck traffic is essentially constant throughout all hours of the day and night (see figure 6). That does not jibe with my observations. In particular, truck stops and rest areas are a lot more full at nights than they are during the day, which would suggest some higher degree of variation, at least to my mind.

Possible that the rest areas are fuller at night because that's when they're more frequently stopped and resting. I believe they're limited to 14 hrs per 24 hrs of driving, so they in general rest at night because its safer and easier on the body. Just a thought, as I literally have no idea about this.

[Scott5114]

And it could be that you don't see truckers resting during the day because they haven't started their overnight routes yet, so they're at home base. I'd guess a lot of the overnight truck traffic is deliveries to grocery stores, restaurants, etc., where it's common to schedule deliveries to occur in the wee hours of the morning so that the business is stocked up for the morning (and also to avoid the delivery from getting in the way of the customers).