Case Study – Qk4 Engineers Automate Data Collection & Increase Profit by 40%

Printable Version »

Qk4 is a multi-disciplinary engineering firm headquartered in Louisville Kentucky with extensive experience in traffic counting. The company currently holds data collection contracts with multiple public transportation departments and private developers.

Scenario

QK4’s traffic engineering department is always looking for new technology that will increase productivity and provide added value for their clients and to their projects. Qk4’s most demanding count program is with Louisville Metro, which requires four 12hr TMC counts per week with car, heavy truck, pedestrian and bicycle classification. The 48hrs of weekly counting have historically been collected manually through the use of a Temp Agency.

Challenges

Specific focus was given to improving profit margin for the Louisville Metro contract. Qk4’s prerogative was to evaluate innovative technology products which could improve the traffic data collection segment of their business and boost the bottom line. New technology:

• Must be accurate
• Reduce overall data collection costs
• Reduce the amount of time spent administering and managing counts
• Preserve or improve on the simplicity of their current outsourcing process

Solution

Bringing data collection in house with Miovision’s automatic traffic data collection system enabled Qk4 to collect higher quality data at a lower cost. Miovision was also able to add extra value by providing a video record alongside traffic data reports to share with clients and visually audit irregular data.

For Qk4, study accuracy is hugely important. “We look at traffic data as the gospel,” quotes Qk4’s Director of Planning, Tom Springer, AICP, CEP. “Decisions about major public investments to the sum of hundreds of thousands of dollars are predicated on data.” To mitigate future LOS failure, current real-world data must be collected, and it must be accurate. Project Manager Jeremy Lukat, PE explains, “Traffic is unpredictable from year to year. Factors such as an economic downturn can significantly reduce the accuracy of simply applying a growth factor to historical data.” For example, an area hit with job loss will likely see a peak volume reduction rather than increase.

Implementing Miovision’s system brought data collection in-house at a significant cost savings, and also simplified the entire process, saving time, and consequently, saving money.

Figure 1: Using Miovision on the Louisville data collection project required only 1.5hrs of work per count versus 3hrs of work per count spent administering and managing temporary workers.

Figure 2: A 40% cost reduction was realized as a result of the time savings and a cost-per-hour savings with Miovision versus managing and compensating temporary staff.

The duty of deploying Miovision’s Video Collection Unit and uploading video for analysis is shared by four people within the department, each team member taking a week with the unit at a time. “With four of us sharing the field deployment and video uploads, we are able to come together as a team and share what we learned while responding quickly to clients,” quotes Mr. Springer.

Conclusions

Download Qk4 Case Study

By bringing data collection in house for the Louisville Metro project, Qk4 met their challenges head-on. With Miovision’s system to automate traffic data collection, Qk4 can:

• Reduce the costs associated with data collection by 40% per count
• Increase productivity 100% by limiting the amount of back and forth required per count
• Work together as a department to share a common goal and increase their overall productivity
• Share video recordings with clients to help them better understand their traffic problems, such as safety, that traffic data alone does not illustrate
• Audit video recordings to validate data

Want to find out what your data collection system could look like?

Get a detailed quote designed specifically for your counting program today.

Build Your System »