Harmonised Traffic Counts

The Harmonised Traffic Counts dataset reports on the number and type of vehicles travelling past traffic counter stations across Australia in a given duration, over time. Depending on the sophistication of the counter and the provider, counts can be by vehicle classification (using the AustRoads 1-12 classification), a 2 or 4-level grouping of the 12-level classification or a simple count of all traffic. 

The data is sourced from a number of providers, either state authorities or commercial data collection facilitators, who publish open traffic counts. Count observations can be hourly, by calendar year or financial year – this depends on what each jurisdiction releases.

The NFDH is piloting the harmonisation and release of this data set, and has combined traffic count information from the following states: NSW, QLD, SA, TAS, and VIC. The extracts linked below are only samples of the full harmonised data set.

Please contact us if you have any feedback, further enquiries, or would like access to the full data set.

The NFDH is in the process of designing an API which will allow users to query, filter and download the full Harmonised Traffic Counts data set. We welcome any feedback that you would like to provide to help enhance our API design.

Some background on the extracts:

  • The data contains station details and observation details (counts). 
  • Traffic counts may be hourly (NSW/VIC/TAS) or yearly (SA/QLD).
  • A station can have multiple traffic counters – please note that counter name is not unique across the board but is unique within station name/id
  • The counter_type column indicates how many of the count fields will be populated and what each count field represents
Counter Type Counting
1 Single count for all vehicles, regardless of class
2 Counts for Light (class 1 and 2) and Heavy (classes 3 to 12) categories
4 Counts for Short (classes 1 and 2), Rigid (classes 3 to 5), Articulated (classes 6 to 9) and Combination (classes 10 to 12) categories
12 Individual counts for each of the 12 classifications

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Author NFDH
Maintainer NFDH
Last Updated November 3, 2022, 02:03 (UTC)
Created September 11, 2022, 07:17 (UTC)
Access is Public Yes
Data Priority Traffic counts;
Data type Category
Geographic Scope States (NSW / QLD / SA / TAS / VIC)
Release Date 01 Jun 2022
Temporal Coverage NSW/VIC/TAS: Oct to Dec 2021, SA: Financial years 2019/20 and 2020/21, QLD: 2019 and 2020
Update Frequency Other / ad-hoc