Case Study
Helsinki study on traffic flow relies on TomTom historical traffic data
Customer
Location
Product/Service
City of Helsinki
Urban Environment Division
Traffic and Street Planning
Helsinki, Finland
Traffic Stats
Overview
Transport and traffic planning in Helsinki embraces all modes of transport: public transport, cars, cycling and walking. There is a special emphasis on public transport to ensure smooth and high-quality service. Traffic safety is the key goal in all transport and traffic planning
The Challenge
Increased traffic congestion is an unavoidable problem in almost every growing city in the world. Peak-hour stop-and-go traffic is therefore a characteristic result of how our metropolitan areas function. As urbanization is expected to further grow the world's population living in cities by up to 80%, the problem of increasing traffic and congestion is a serious challenge for policy makers. Some cities are beginning to move the curb' by investigating options that will lead to a reduction of congestion.
The city of Helsinki recently published a study on traffic flow authored by traffic specialist Petri Blomqvist. It is an example of best-in-class problem solving initiatives created using TomTom's data. This study, based on seven years of data between 2010 and 2017, uses TomTom
Traffic Stats commercial data to measure delay times per kilometer and identify high-congestion streets or areas throughout the city.
Published earlier this year, Blomqvist's analysis provided detailed results to the city government to show how traffic flow improved over the study period. Besides studying individual streets and the overall situation, Helsinki also studied pre-defined corridors using TomTom's Route
Analysis. Compared to similar studies, Blomqvist was able to deliver stronger results while lowering the cost of production by using data from
TomTom.
Prior traffic studies were performed by installing probes in three cars that drove through traffic along 14 predefined routes. This probe data was extremely limited and caused problems with variability, as it only measured point studies. In comparison, TomTom Traffic Stats data are based on millions of anonymous probes which are evaluated and analyzed automatically. These data are highly precise and reliable. In fact, several independent studies have confirmed the accuracy of TomTom's traffic data. A Masters thesis performed by Samuli Kyt? in 2016
studied TomTom's commercial data and found it to be very accurate for Finnish traffic analysis; The Helsinki Regional Transport Authority
(HSL) also studied TomTom's data and published a report in 2017 with equally positive results. With this high-quality data, Blomqvist created a meticulous and factual report.
The Solution
The Helsinki study selected ten predefined time intervals each consisting of 45 days, resulting in highly reliable data with an impressive
800% growth in probe count in only three years. From this data, Blomqvist identified the top ten most congested streets based on delay in hours over the period of 45 days. One example revealed by the analysis suggests that the traffic delays on Mannerheimintie the most congested street add up to 145 days; in other words, the time spent driving 4.3 times around the equator at an average speed of 60 km/h.
And that's only for one street over a period of 45 days of measurement.
The Results
Blomqvist's study was only possible to this extent thanks to the highly granular and precise data from TomTom Traffic Stats. TomTom's
