The Keys to Estimating Mobility in Urban Areas

There are several keys to developing and applying mobility measures that are technically useful and generally understandable. Travel time measures are relatively easy to comprehend, but they have not always been used because of data concerns, mandated reporting practices, and other issues. Travel time and speed measures can serve many different uses, communicate to many different audiences, and enhance the ability of project analysis techniques to determine the most appropriate set of policies, programs, and projects for a situation. The important concepts identified in this paper are summarized below. This report outlines many of the important mobility measurement concepts.

The overriding conclusion from any investigation of mobility measures is that there is a range of uses and audiences. No single measure will satisfy all the needs, and no single measure can identify all aspects of mobility—there is no “silver bullet” measure.

The complete report and the individual chapters (found below) are available in PDF format.

• Executive Summary
• Chapter 1 – Introduction
• Chapter 2 – Objectives for Measuring Mobility
• Chapter 3 – The Process of Measuring Mobility
• Chapter 4 – Selecting Mobility Measures
• Chapter 5 – Recommended Mobility Measures and Data Elements
• Chapter 6 – Data Collection and Databases
• Chapter 7 – Graphical Illustrations of Mobility Measurement
• Chapter 8 – Application and Interpretation of Congestion Measures

Application Spreadsheet
This spreadsheet contains applications of many of the mobility measures discussed in the report.