Chicago Arterial Traffic Congestion Estimates from Bus GPS (2011-2018)

Historical congestion estimates for 1,270 traffic segments on Chicago's arterial streets, derived from GPS traces of Chicago Transit Authority buses. The dataset covers selected periods from August 2011 to May 2018, providing speed observations for approximately 300 miles of principal arterials. It was produced by the Chicago Traffic Tracker system, which generated estimates every 10 minutes.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical speed trends on specific arterial segments using the SEGMENTID and SPEED columns.
• Studying the relationship between bus activity and traffic flow via the BUS COUNT and MESSAGE COUNT fields.
• Modeling temporal congestion patterns at 10-minute intervals using the TIME column.
• Comparing traffic conditions across different city regions by aggregating segment-level data.

Strengths

• Covers a significant time span of nearly seven years, from August 2011 to May 2018.
• Monitors a large network of approximately 300 miles of principal arterial streets across 1,270 segments.
• Data is generated from a consistent, real-time method using GPS traces from CTA buses.

Limitations

• Sources conflict on the row count and dataset size, with no concrete numbers provided.
• Data is historical and ends in May 2018, with newer records available in separate datasets.
• The license and author information are not specified in any source.

Provenance

Source

Chicago Traffic Tracker / data.cityofchicago.org

Collection Method

Continuous monitoring and analysis of GPS traces from Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) buses.

Time Range

August 2011 to May 2018

Freshness

2026-04-05 05:52:42.372210

Geography

Chicago arterial streets (non-freeway), excluding O'Hare airport area.