Managing existing and providing for future traffic flow is a major objective of spatial planning. This exercise is governed not only by political and other normative considerations but predicated on empirical measurements of traffic flows.
Traffic planners at various levels and jurisdictions use a plethora of different collections of traffic data to direct their planning efforts. Consequently the conclusions those planning groups arrive at are oftentimes not consistent, sometimes even contradicting each other.
Transport planning decisions in Austria and at the European Union level require valid, coherent and consistent data sources for freight transport. The current production process of the data uses primarily national and EU surveys on cargo road movements, merged with traffic counts, where available.
