Road Characteristics
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      Road Characteristics Data

      A summary of Urban SDK's Road Characteristics Data specification.

      Road_Characteristics

      1.0 Introduction

      Road Characteristics are collected from aerial imagery and processed by Urban SDK to quantify road geometry and attributes that represent the road's 3D design.  The metrics that are calculated by Urban SDK include:

      Tagged to Urban SDK's LRS (line string):

      • Roadway:

        • Road Surface Type (Asphalt / Concrete / Dirt-Gravel / Brick / Other)

        • Average Road Surface Width (ft)

        • Vehicle Lanes (#)

        • Average Lane Width (ft)

        • Average Median Width (ft)
        • Driveways (#)

        • Driveways Side (0 / 1 side / 2 sides)

        • Street Parking Type (None / Angled / Parallel / Perpendicular)

        • Street Parking Side (0 / 1 side / 2 sides)

        • Estimated Street Parking Stalls (#)

      • Active Transportation:
        • Average Sidewalk Width (ft)
        • Sidewalk Side (0 / 1 side / 2 sides)
        • Sidewalk Type (None / Concrete / Multi-Use / Other / Mixed)
        • Average Sidewalk Road Separation (ft)
        • Pedestrian Level of Traffic Stress (PLTS) - More Info
        • Average Bike Width (ft)
        • Bike Side (0 / 1 side / 2 sides)
        • Bike Type (None / Dedicated / Sharrow / Other / Mixed)
        • Average Bike Road Separation (ft)
        • Bike Level of Traffic Stress (BLTS) - More Info
        • Crosswalks (#)

      Provided as Point Data:

        • Intersections (Unsignalized / Signalized)
        • Crosswalks
        • Driveways

      2.0 Methodology

      Data Collection & Processing

      image-png-Feb-28-2024-07-38-30-2681-PMStep 1 - Feature Collection

      Updated Satellite Aerial Imagery is collected and processed to detect roadway features.  These features are detected using image detection and machine learning algorithms to automatically detect the various road elements.

      image-png-Feb-28-2024-07-39-07-3258-PMStep 2 - Linear Reference System (LRS) Tagging

      Extracted Features are coded onto Urban SDK's LRS to efficiently store road characteristics information. This allows each road segment's unique ID to be used as a reference for searching and joining Road Characteristics data with Urban SDK's entire data catalog.

      💡Tip:

      • Storage efficiency: Tagging Road Characteristics data to Urban SDK's LRS is significantly more efficient for storing geometry data as opposed to storing 1:1 geometry footprints of each road feature. This reduces the typical file size by up to 90%. 
      • Easy to combine with other Data: Tagging Road Characteristics data to the LRS also offers the benefit of allowing customers to easily conduct complex analysis like comparing how characteristics such as road widths correlate with Traffic Speed, Traffic Delay, and Traffic Volume, since they are all provided on a common LRS that can be efficiently calculated at scale.
      • Easy to compare year-over-year changes: Another advantage of tagging Road Characteristics data to the LRS is that it allows customers to compare year-over-year changes in Road Characteristics using the LRS segment ID rather than having to do complex spatial analysis to compare geometry footprints of features that may have varying IDs that change year-over-year as features are added or altered.

      3.0 Data Specification

      Metadata Fields

      Metadata fields that are provided for all data are detailed in Urban SDK's Linear Referencing System (LRS) specification.

      Data Fields

      The following table is the format in which downloaded Road Characteristics data will be provided:

      ⚠️NOTE: Road segments that are represented as bi-directional roads (i.e. a single link representing both directions) the values provided are inclusive of both directions. For roads that are separated by direction, and which have a separate road segment for each direction, values are provided for each direction.

      Field Type Description
      year integer The year associated with the provided data.
      month integer The month associated with the provided data as an integer between 1 and 12.
      road_surface_type string

      The predominant surface type of the roadway:

      • Asphalt
      • Concrete
      • Dirt/Gravel
      • Brick
      • Other
      avg_road_width numeric Average total road surface width along the road segment.
      num_veh_lanes integer The total number of vehicle lanes.
      avg_lane_width numeric The total road surface width divided by the number of vehicle lanes.
      avg_boulevard_width numeric Average boulevard width along the road segment.
      boulevard_side integer

      How many sides boulevards are present:

      • 0 - None
      • 1 - one side
      • 2 - both sides
      avg_median_width numeric Average median width along the road segment.
      num_driveways integer The total number of driveways along the road segment.
      driveway_side integer

      How many sides driveways are present:

      • 0 - None
      • 1 - one side
      • 2 - both sides
      street_parking_type string

      The predominant type of parking along the road segment:

      • None
      • Angled
      • Parallel
      • Perpendicular
      street_parking_side integer

      How many sides street parking is present:

      • 0 - None
      • 1 - one side
      • 2 - both sides
      street_parking_stalls integer

      Estimated number of parking stalls based on dividing the length of the road link by the following typical parking stall widths, and multiplied by the number of sides parking is present:

      • Angled: 9.5 ft
      • Parallel: 24 ft
      • Perpendicular: 8.5 ft 
      avg_sidewalk_width numeric Average width of sidewalks along the road segment.
      sidewalk_side integer

      How many sides sidewalks are present:

      • 0 - None
      • 1 - one side
      • 2 - both sides
      sidewalk_type string

      The predominant type of sidewalk facility along the road segment:

      • None
      • Concrete
      • Multi-Use
      • Other
      avg_sidewalk_separation numeric Average separation of sidewalk facilities along the road segment.
      plts integer

      Pedestrian Level of Traffic Stress:

      • LTS 1 - Great
      • LTS 2 - Good
      • LTS 3 - Fair
      • LTS 4 - Poor
      avg_bike_width numeric Average bike facility width along the road segment.
      bike_side integer

      How many sides bike facilities are present:

      • 0 - None
      • 1 - one side
      • 2 - both sides
      bike_type string

      The predominant type of bike facility along the road segment:

      • None
      • Dedicated
      • Sharrow
      • Other
      • Mixed
      avg_bike_separation numeric Average separation of bike facilities along the road segment.
      blts integer

      Bike Level of Traffic Stress: 

      • LTS 1 - Great
      • LTS 2 - Good
      • LTS 3 - Fair
      • LTS 4 - Poor
      num_crosswalks integer The total number of crosswalks present along the road segment.