DEKALB SYCAMORE AREA TRANSPORTATION STUDY: LOANING OF DSATS EQUIPMENT

Transcription

1 DEKALB SYCAMORE AREA TRANSPORTATION STUDY: LOANING OF DSATS EQUIPMENT DSATS / City of DeKalb Policies and Procedures This procedure manual provides DSATS staff guidance in loaning DSATS owned equipment to other organizations.

2 Table of Contents Table of Contents... 1 Introduction... 2 DSATS Owned Equipment... 2 Equipment Request... 2 Equipment Use... 3 Equipment Fees... 3 Data Analysis

3 Introduction The DeKalb Sycamore Area Transportation Study (DSATS) has purchased various equipment to perform transportation related counts and other activities. This Policy document identifies the procedures used by staff when loaning out equipment to other agencies and organizations. DSATS Owned Equipment Bike and Pedestrian Counters o DSATS has 6 infra-red bike counters that it uses to take bike and pedestrian counts along trails and sidewalks. These counters are dispersed at locations throughout the DSATS region. If a member organization, other governmental agency, or known public service agency wishes to use these counters for a special project, they can submit a request for use of the equipment. Bike Tube Counters o DSATS has 8 bike tube counters that it uses to take bike counts along trails and roadways. These tube counters are primarily used to gather bike use data along roadways. If a member organization, other governmental agency, or know public service agency wishes to use these counters for a special project, they can submit a request for use of the equipment. DSATS staff notes that while these counters can be used for regular traffic counting activities, these counters were primarily designed to be used on roadways with lower traffic counts and higher bike usage. Use of these counters on high volume roadway projects is discouraged as it can shorten the useful life of these counters significantly. Video Traffic Counters o DSATS is purchasing 6 video traffic counting units and the use of web based or desktop video processing software to analyze video traffic count information. Once a year, the DSATS member organizations will use these counters to gather traffic counting information around the region. These counters are available to others for special studies the rest of the year. If a member organization, other governmental agency, or know public service agency wishes to use these counters for a special project, they can submit a request for use of the equipment. Equipment Request Staff will maintain an activity log for all DSATS owned equipment which will identify past and current use. Requestors may submit a request for the use of the equipment using the Equipment Loan Agreement form. Staff will review the current usage of equipment to identify if the requested equipment is available for the dates identified. If unavailable, staff will contact the requestor and identify when the equipment would be available for use. DSATS will loan equipment to the following types of organizations. Organizations are listed in the priority in which they will be loaned out if there is conflicting usage of equipment: 1. DSATS Member Organizations 2. Other Governmental Organizations (requires DSATS Director approval) 3. Non-profit and Community Service organizations (requires DSATS TAC/PC approval) 2

4 Equipment Use When placing DSATS equipment at a public site, the requestor using the equipment shall agree to: 1. The requestor using the equipment shall have insurance coverage in the event the equipment is lost, stolen, damaged, or returned inoperable. The requestor will be responsible for the cost of repair or replacement of equipment. 2. The requestor shall contact the property owner or appropriate governmental department of the placing of the equipment at a specified location. 3. The requestor shall contact the Police Department in the jurisdiction in which the equipment is placed to let them know the equipment has been authorized to be placed at that location. Equipment Fees Each type of equipment has their own data analysis software. DSATS reserves the right to charge data analysis fees dependent on the type of project the equipment is being used for. Any fees or charges will be identified prior to the equipment being loaned to the requestor. 1. DSATS Staff Equipment Installation/Removal: DSATS reserves the right to charge a fee, based on staff worktime, to install or remove requested equipment. Fees may be waived if the installation is pertinent information that DSATS staff can use in their planning process. 2. DSATS Staff Data Analysis: DSATS reserves the right to charge a fee, based on staff worktime, to download data and provide data analysis information. Fees may be waived if the data is pertinent information the DSATS staff can use in their planning process. 3. Vendor Data Analysis: If the equipment vendor charges a data analysis fee for processing equipment information, the requestor shall be expected pay all data analysis fees charged by the vendor. Based on the vendor and data processing agreements, the requestor may either be charged directly from the vendor, or DSATS will be charged and the requestor will be sent a bill for payment of fees. Data Analysis Each piece of equipment provides different types of data analysis information that can be processed through their software. Bike and Pedestrian Counters: Trafx currently provides limited data analysis from their bikepedestrian counters for free. The data analysis is web-based and allows up to 5 user accounts at a time. The current license expires in May 2019 and DSATS expects some data analysis fee to be charged at that time to extend the services. Staff can place the counters, upload data, and provide requested reports. The requestor can also have an account created that the requestor can log onto and produce their own reports. The following data information is provided: o Counts: Daily, weekly or monthly totals, for one or more counter sites. o Patterns: A simplified way of saying "histograms". A histogram is a chart (graph) that shows the distribution of data within various classes or groups. Here, this means the data distribution or patterns associated with hours of the day, days of week, weeks of the year, and months of the year. o Pies: Used to compare two or more counter sites using a pie chart, click on Compare sites; to view a days-of-the-week histogram for one or more sites, click on 7 day pie. 3

5 o Master Summary: provides a year-by-year and month-by-month compilation of totals and trends for each counter site, as explained in Section 1.2 o Yearly trends: shows changes in yearly totals over the desired number of years. In other words, it is a year to year comparison. The values are based on the average daily total (ADT) for the available data multiplied by 365 days. o Raw Data: Raw data can be provided in Excel or CSV formats. Bike Tube Counters: MetroCount provides desktop software that can perform the counter data analysis. For non-dsats activities, DSATS reserves the right to charge a fee for staff worktime to install and remove equipment, upload data, and provide requested data analysis reports. The following types of reports are available: o Classification Reports: These include weekly vehicle counts, vehicle counts, daily classes, class speed matrix, speed separation matrix, rolling day totals, individual vehicles, queued vehicles, and various other reports. o Custom List Reports: These are Classification Reports that can be customized based on various filters. o Raw Data: Raw data can be provided in Excel or CSV formats. Video Traffic Counters: This section will be filled out once video counters are purchased. Video counter vendors typically charge an hourly, monthly, or yearly fee to process video and provide requested reports. For requestors who use the Video Traffic Counters for non-dsats projects, the requestor will be expected to both create their own vendor account and be charged directly by the vendor. The requestor can alternatively request DSATS staff upload data and provide reports and reimburse the City of all data analysis charges, including DSATS staff collection and data analysis time spent on requestor s projects. 4

6 Equipment Loan Agreement DeKalb Sycamore Area Transportation Study 200 South 4 th Street DeKalb, IL Phone (815) DeKalb Sycamore Area Transportation Study is lending listed equipment to: NAME OF CONTACT ORGANIZATION ADDRESS, CITY, STATE, ZIP PHONE The equipment will be used to complete the following project: SCOPE OF PROJECT for the GOVERNMENT AGENCY or JURISDICTION Organizations wishes the use of equipment from / / to / /. By signing this agreement, the organization agrees to return the equipment by date identified above. If the DSATS loaned equipment is lost, stolen, damaged or returned inoperable, the organization will be responsible for the cost of repair or replacement. SIGNATURE / / DATE List of Equipment Date Requested: / / Office Use Date Approved: / / Staff Signature: Date Returned: / /

7 EQUIPMENT USAGE REQUIREMENTS When using DSATS owned equipment, the user agrees to the following: 1. The organization using the equipment shall have insurance coverage in the event the equipment is lost, stolen, damaged, or returned inoperable. The organization will be responsible for the cost of repair or replacement of equipment. 2. The organization shall contact the property owner or appropriate governmental department of the placing of the equipment at a specified location. 3. Contact the Police Department in the jurisdiction in which the equipment is placed to let them know the equipment has been authorized to be placed at that location. 4. DSATS reserves the right to charge for any staff time spent on the requesting organizations project request. Those fees may be waived at the DSATS Directors discretion. Services include: a. Installation and removal of equipment; b. Uploading of data and development of requested data information, graphs, charts, etc. c. Any data analysis reports of the data provided.