About
Portland Region Traffic Performance Report
The Portland Metro region is experiencing growth in population, jobs and travel leading to severe congestion along freeway corridors. Severe congestion results in recurring safety hot-spots and reduced system reliability.
The Portland Region Traffic Performance Report provides a foundation for monitoring the health of the regional freeway system using the following key performance categories: congestion and bottlenecks, reliability, safety (related to crashes and incidents) and speed/delay. The 2020 report covers traffic performance in 2019 (the most recent year of non-pandemic influenced data), which enables ODOT to identify problems and manage the system to facilitate the efficient movement of people, goods and services. The 2020 report also shows that targeted highway investments in traffic bottleneck locations have significantly improved highway performance in terms of improved travel time reliability, reduced delay and fewer crashes.
Active Traffic Management Strategy
ODOT’s
Active Traffic Management Atlas identifies where investments in real-time message signing and other intelligent transportation systems will benefit highway operations. Core recommendations include variable speed signs, queue warning signs and traveler information signs at strategic locations. Where implemented, these recommendations improve safety and reduce the severity and frequency of collisions, improve network reliability, allow for improved incident and work zone management.
Corridor Bottleneck Operations Study
ODOT’s
Corridor Bottleneck Operations Study recommends cost-effective and smaller scale operational improvements to the existing system, such as adding auxiliary lanes between freeway interchanges to enhance safety by improving weaves and merges. These improvements do not add capacity to the freeway system, but are intended to address congestion at identified bottlenecks, particularly during the peak commute shoulder hours (the hours before and after the traditional rush hour traffic pattern).
Impact of COVID-19 on Traffic in Portland
Beginning March 14, 2020, ODOT traffic analysts noted a significant drop in daily traffic volume on major freeways in the Portland metropolitan region and a substantial decrease in total travel time. After Governor Brown's stay-at-home order issued March 23, 2020 traffic volume continued to decrease, with the fewest amount of average weekday vehicles occurring the week of March 30-April 3, 2020. Region 1 traffic analysts monitored traffic volumes, travel times, and incidents on Portland's major freeway corridors (I-5, I-205, I-84, I-405, OR 217, and US 26) to better understand the impacts of Covid-19 on travel patterns. Reports from March 2020 through January 2022 are available upon request.
Location
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Freeway corridors in the Portland metro area.
Cost and Funding
The studies were funded through a combination of federal Surface Transportation System Funds, federal State Planning and Research funds and a state match. The 2018 Portland Region Traffic Performance Report cost approximately $190,000 to complete.