There are dozens of small plastic boxes strategically scattered around Haines, each with an attached rubber hose laid out across a public road. Technically, they are switches programmed to count traffic.
“There’s federal requirements that are asking us to report traffic at a statewide level,” said Department of Transportation and Public Facilities transportation planner Scott Vockeroth. He said his office submits the data to the Federal Highway Administration.
“We conduct counts on a rotation,” Vockeroth said. “It’s been awhile since we’ve been into Haines, Sitka, and some of those communities, so this year is the year to do it.”
This data collection includes the rest of the Chilkat Valley. Residents can see historical data from Mud Bay, out Lutak Road, Klukwan, Mosquito Lake, and along the Haines Highway by using the department’s public portal. The last time the state counted traffic in the area was 2017.
The traffic counters won’t stay long though. Vockeroth said data collection will take a week.
“Alaska, we’re very seasonal, when it comes to traffic, whether that’s tourists, cruises, whatever you want to call it … We take that seven day chunk and factor in the seasonality. We look at actual factors.”
So how does the counter work?
Vockeroth said the rubber hoses are hollow and attached to the counter.
“When the vehicle drives over the hose, the axle of the tires hits it causing an air impulse that goes to a switch. So every time a vehicle drives over, that counter picks up that air pulse, and that counts it as one axle then another,” he said. “Every two impulses within a certain amount of time triggers one vehicle.”
Some counters have two hoses attached.
“There’s different configurations that we can set up on the roadway. And they can tell us different types of things,” Vockeroth said. “One hose is very simple, it’s just going to tell us a volume. But if we can get two hoses sometimes that can tell you speed, that can tell you the type of vehicle. So whether it’s a passenger car, pickup truck, or a tractor trailer going over, the counters are able to look at those impulses, how they’re coming in and differentiate what kind of vehicles are driving over.”
Vockeroth said he looks for anomalies too, like if the numbers don’t match or if one counter has a larger amount of traffic counts — like an object triggering it excessively.
He recalled a time when he went to a community that hasn’t experienced a traffic count in recent memory.
“There were kids there, and they thought it was the funnest thing in the world. And they jumped on top of the hoses for a half hour, they’re just jumping on top, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.”
Vockeroth said people have been misinformed about the traffic count and how it equates to funding projects.
“Generally, those numbers aren’t going to impact projects. They can be used in a project selection, but generally, like 99% of these, they’re just out there to try to figure out what’s going on in Alaska. And if we see a high, high count, where there’s, you know, a whole bunch of one hour posts every other hour, we start to get suspicious of somebody driving or jumping on our hoses over and over again,” he said.
If there is a big project coming through, and state agencies or designers want to know values, Vockeroth said his office will assist and put out some counts if necessary or required.
“Generally, the purpose of the program is just to get an understanding of the travel in Alaska,” he said.
All of the data Vockeroth collects is available to the public. He encourages people to check DOT’s website and get a better understanding of traffic throughout the state. The site also contains raw data and hourly distribution of vehicles over certain public roads.