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Traffic Intelligence - Daily Traffic Volume (AADT) by Road

Feature availability

  • Free
  • Lite
  • Pro
  • Lite Pro
  • Pro Business

Traffic Intelligence colors every road on your map by how much traffic it carries. It uses AADT (Annual Average Daily Traffic): the average number of vehicles that use a road on a typical day. You can play a 24-hour simulation to see when roads are busy, and click any road to get its traffic report.

The kit covers roads across the USA and Canada. It also shows traffic count stations, the places where traffic is officially counted.

Add the Traffic Intelligence kit

You can add the kit from either place:

  • Launch Pad: find the Traffic Intelligence card and click Use Kit.
  • Maps & Data: open the Kits tab, find the Traffic Intelligence card, and click Use Kit.

The Traffic Intelligence panel opens on the map, and the roads are colored by traffic volume.

When you add the kit, the base map changes to Midnight, because the traffic colors are easiest to read on a dark map. If you use a custom map style, your style is kept.

If your plan is not Pro Business, you see Pro Business Required for Traffic Intelligence with an Upgrade button. To try the kit first, click Example on the card. The example shows central Washington, DC, and the panel says Example area: Washington, DC.

Read the road colors

Each road's color shows its traffic volume, in vehicles per day. The legend under Daily Volume (AADT): in the panel shows the same colors:

ColorLegendMeaning
Green< 1k (Local)Fewer than 1,000 vehicles a day, such as quiet local streets
Cyan1k – 5k1,000 to 5,000 vehicles a day
Orange5k – 25k5,000 to 25,000 vehicles a day
Red25k – 75k25,000 to 75,000 vehicles a day
Dark red75k+ (High)More than 75,000 vehicles a day, such as major highways

Watch traffic over 24 hours

Traffic is not the same all day. The Time Simulation: controls show how busy roads are at each hour. The colors change with the hour you pick. The panel starts on a weekday at 5:00 PM, the evening rush.

  • Weekday or Weekend: pick the kind of day. Weekend traffic follows a different pattern.
  • Hour slider: drag it to pick an hour from midnight to 11:00 PM. The box at the top of the panel shows the day, the time, and whether it is a peak or low hour, for example Weekday • 5:00 PM • Peak.
  • Play 24h Sim: plays a full day, one hour after another. Click Pause Sim to stop it.
  • Speed: the menu next to the play button sets the speed: 0.5×, 1×, 2×, or 4×. At 1× a full day takes about 36 seconds.

Get a traffic report for a road

  1. Zoom in until you can see single streets. If you are zoomed out too far, clicking a road zooms the map in first.
  2. Click a road.

You see Retrieving Traffic Report..., and then the Traffic Intelligence Report opens. It can show:

RowWhat it shows
CorridorThe road's name or route
ClassThe kind of road, such as a highway or a local street
AADT (Daily Volume)Vehicles per day on an average day, and whether that number is measured or estimated
Estimated rangeFor estimates, the low and high values the true volume likely falls between
Weekday (AAWDT)Vehicles per day on an average weekday
Weekend (AAWET)Vehicles per day on an average weekend day
Trucks %The share of the traffic that is trucks
Peak HourThe busiest hour of the day
Peak VolumeVehicles per hour in the busiest hour
Reliability GradeHow much you can rely on the number
Expected errorFor estimates, how far off the number may be, as a plus or minus percent

A row is left out when there is no data for it.

The report also has an Hourly Profile (24h) chart. Click a day of the week above the chart to see that day. The chart shows the typical daily pattern for this kind of road, scaled to this road's volume. It is not a set of hourly counts for this exact road.

Measured and estimated numbers

Next to the daily volume, the report says where the number comes from:

  • Measured: the number comes from an official traffic count on this road. When the count year is known, it is shown too, for example Measured (2023 count).
  • Estimated: no official count exists for this road, so the number is a model estimate. Check the Estimated range, Reliability Grade, and Expected error rows before you rely on it.

Save a road to your map

In the report, click Add Line To Map. The road is added to your map as a line that keeps its traffic data, so you can style it, share it, and export it like any other line.

Remove the kit

Click Remove Layer in the panel, or click the X at the top of the panel. Lines you added with Add Line To Map stay on your map.

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