Chicago Arterial Traffic Congestion Estimates by Region 2013-2018

City of Chicago data provides historical congestion estimates for 29 traffic regions from January 2013 to May 2018. The dataset is derived from real-time GPS traces of Chicago Transit Authority buses, producing average traffic condition estimates every 10 minutes for non-freeway arterial streets.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal patterns in regional congestion across 29 traffic regions from 2013 to 2018.
• Model the relationship between traffic region congestion and external factors like time of day or weather.
• Compare traffic volatility between individual arterial segments and aggregated regional averages.

Strengths

• Covers 29 distinct traffic regions across the entire city of Chicago.
• Provides over five years of historical data from January 2013 to May 2018.
• Estimates are generated every 10 minutes from real-time GPS data of CTA buses.

Limitations

• Data is limited to arterial streets and excludes freeways and the O'Hare airport area.
• The historical series ends in May 2018, requiring joins with newer datasets for current analysis.
• Volatility in individual segment speeds may affect granular analysis.

Provenance

Source

City of Chicago

Collection Method

Estimated by continuously monitoring and analyzing GPS traces from Chicago Transit Authority buses.

Time Range

January 2013 to May 2018

Freshness

Historical data; series ends May 2018. Current estimates are available via separate linked datasets.

Geography

City of Chicago, Illinois, USA (29 traffic regions)