Average traffic density on Estonia's national roads inched up by one vehicle to 796 vehicles a day last year from 795 vehicles in 2011, it appears from traffic count data.
Traffic density on Estonia's national roads grows marginally on year
On the main roads the annual average daily traffic value was 4,208, marking an increase of 1.3 percent over 2011, the Road Administration said. On basic roads the number was 1,297, 0.9 percent bigger than in the year before, and on secondary roads 259, 3.6 percent smaller than in 2011.
The section between kilometers 13 and 13.7 of the Tallinn-Parnu-Ikla road, on Tallinn's city limits, maintained its position as the road section with the highest density of traffic also in 2012 with a reading of 31,411 vehicles per day on average during the year.
The Road Administration said that changes in the Estonian economy are reflected directly in traffic density figures. After the economic slump in 2008 which brought with itself a major decline in traffic intensity in 2008-2010, growth resumed at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in 2011. Aside from the overall situation of the economy traffic density is influenced by the price of motor fuel, taxes, development of public transport, use of local infrastructure and land use, as well as other factors.
Modern traffic count started on Estonian roads in the 1990s when the first automated traffic counters were installed.
Since the summer of 2012 data from the 88 permanent counting points is fed every 15 minutes into the database available on the web at tarktee.mnt.ee.