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Minnesota Department of Transportation

511 Travel Info

State Aid for Local Transportation

E-Scene July 2026

MnDOT traffic monitoring 2026 strategic initiatives

By: Christy Prentice, Traffic Forecasting & Analysis Supervisor, Office of Transportation System Management

Like many public sector programs, the Traffic Monitoring effort of MnDOT is facing a few practical challenges and opportunities. This effort at MnDOT is in large part funded by federal dollars, with the primary goal of meeting Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) reporting requirements. A large amount of time is spent collecting information on roads that don’t see much traffic, while some of the state’s busiest and most important routes fall behind in data collection. It has also been challenging to keep frequent counting schedules on track due to road construction, detours, school calendars, and seasonal activities. At the same time, MnDOT still relies heavily on hands on methods of data collection, like tube counts. Limited budgets, equipment, and staffing add additional overall pressure to the program. These challenges underscore the need to modernize how, when, and where MnDOT collects traffic data and make better use of new tools and automated systems.

Action plan for traffic monitoring modernization

Streamline short-term count scheduling

For major roadways (Interstate, US, MN highways, and HPMS required class counts)
  • Ensure full compliance with the federal 3-year cycle annually.
  • Prioritize updating all 13-class count locations used in forecasting with post-2020 data.
  • Address equipment cost and limitations by using strategic deployment (prioritize old data and high volumes).
  • Build flexibility into count scheduling to accommodate construction, detours, school calendars, and harvest seasons by adopting the federal 3-year cycle instead of the 2-year cycle.
For local roads
  • Ensure full compliance with the federal 6-year cycle annually by focusing on HPMS requirements.
  • Build flexibility into count scheduling to accommodate construction, detours, school calendars, and harvest seasons by adopting the federal 6-year cycle instead of a 4-year cycle.
  • Focus on locations where data collection yields the greatest return on investment for both MnDOT and local agencies by counting routes needed for State Aid funding and HPMS (CSAH and MSAS designation in the LRS, paved public road status and functional classes 1-5 and urban 6).
  • Eliminate the 12-year count cycle on unpaved, non-HPMS, County Roads (those that not CSAHs) and transition this set of roads to a request-based approach based on local agency demonstrated need and approval by the MnDOT Traffic Engineer based on available staffing and resources.
  • Pause data collection on low volume dead-end routes and evaluate alternatives for estimating AADT as part of the federal MIRE data initiative.
  • Encourage collaboration with districts, MPOs, and local agencies to identify high-impact areas for more frequent counts on an as needed basis or where significant traffic pattern changes have occurred (new housing, bypass). Contact your local MnDOT District Count Manager and/or refer to the MnDOT Traffic Counting Handbook (PDF) on data submission details.
  • Highlight public MS2 tools for greater understanding of the count data and earlier draft AADT review, done at the discretion of the local agency.

Reduce recounts and enhance quality control with advanced metrics

  • The expanded list of quality control checks in MS2 will be used to flag issues like potential typos, interrupted counts, or equipment errors as reason to recount rather than simply percent change since the last counted AADT.
  • The recount tolerances for roads with AADT under 500 will be raised to +/-50 percent and seasonal timing of counts used more heavily to reduce cost of collection at low volume roads.
  • Recount resources—staff, equipment and travel—will be focused on higher volume locations where accuracy has the greatest impact.

Expand data sources, technical solutions and partnerships

  • Evaluate the application of Annual Estimated Daily Traffic (AEDT) for low-volume, dead-end, and unpaved roads, which was developed with MnDOT Safety Office and FHWA to meet MIRE requirements and have more accurate route specific unsampled values for the Citian Crash Analysis tool. This is designed to work best on functional class 6 and 7 by using parcel and census data to estimate volumes, freeing up traditional counting resources to focus on routes where this modeling is less effective.
  • Partner across MnDOT and with local agencies to utilize traffic volume data from existing signal systems and safety devices, build a coalition to support investment in MS2 modules for turning movement and safety device data integration and replace short-term counts with alternative continuous data streams to improve seasonal factoring and big data metrics, with an emphasis on local road continuous data.
  • Formalize cost sharing on local road continuous data collection by focusing on a multi-year equipment/software installation and repair strategy between the Offices of Transportation System Management and State Aid.