Vehicle Movement
We used several tools to look at flows of vehicles on I-5 and US 101 coming into the Lacey / Olympia / Tumwater urban area, leaving it, and using the freeway to travel among the cities.
At the edges of the study area, cameras captured the number and types of vehicles traveling on the freeway. The cameras also identified the license plates of the vehicles and determined how many and what kind of vehicles passed through the urban area, entered the area and stayed, and left the area. We used a variety of traffic counters (in pavement, tube and radar) to gather information on how many and what kinds of vehicles get on and off the freeway at different interchanges.
Combined, these sources of information provide a fairly comprehensive picture of the volume and flow of traffic using I-5 in northern Thurston County. We collected this information during the morning and evening rush hours during the week of October 25, 2010.