Abstract
Estimating characteristics of motor vehicles and their occupants based on sampling a small portion of vehicles on the road is inherently a statistical problem. The problem has two components: construction of an efficient sampling design and application of an appropriate estimator to collected data. Constructing the sampling design should involve optimal utilization of limited resources to maximize information collected. The selected estimator should provide the most precise and accurate estimate of the characteristic of interest. Four sampling designs and two estimators for determining the proportion of vehicles with a particular characteristic are compared. A simulation example comparing these designs and estimators is provided. The illustration is based on a hypothetical road network typical of the primary transportation system in a metropolitan area of 500,000 to 1 million persons. Some suggestions for choosing appropriate sampling designs and estimators for other vehicle categorization problems are provided.
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