 Uncontrolled manual labor and rework/revisions can quickly shrink the profit margin on any TIA. An experienced Project Manager will take steps to streamline TIA report production to ensure profitability and quality of the deliverables. An efficient team already uses specialized tools such as Synchro, Traffix, SITE, or HCS to model traffic operations, and relies on AutoCAD to produce quality exhibits for TIA reports. The cost of these engineering software tools is money well spent in a production-oriented environment. Yet, no matter how accurate the traffic model and how elaborate the exhibits, it all matters little if creating the intersection volume figures devours your project budget and introduces data entry errors. There is no need to allow manual data entry and its errors to eat into your bottom line. We invite you to take a look at TIAH. Costing a fraction of what you have already spent on the analysis and graphics tools, the TIA Helper software starts paying for itself immediately. Depending on the size of the study, a TIAH license may cost less than the savings you will realize in a single TIA project by automating the critical part of exhibit production. Here is how it works: Example: Manual vs. Automated Production of Intersection Volume Exhibits Let's assume we have a five-intersection, single exhibit traffic study that will require only one revision. The following compares the amount of time that would be required to produce, correct, and revise the intersection volume exhibit manually vs. using TIAH. For the manual data entry, we are assuming an extremely experienced user.
Initial Report |
Manual |
TIAH |
Difference (Manual minus TIAH) |
| Print volume reports |
120 sec |
0 sec |
120 sec |
| Export two volume files |
0 sec |
120 sec |
-120 sec |
| Refresh intersection volumes |
100 sec |
100 sec |
0 sec |
| Modify/enter volumes manually |
600 sec |
0 sec |
600 sec |
| Check for errors |
200 sec |
0 sec |
200 sec |
| Subtotal Initial Report |
1020 sec |
220 sec |
800 sec (13.3 min) |
| |
|
|
|
| Revised Report |
Manual |
TIAH |
Difference (Manual minus TIAH) |
| Print revised volume reports |
120 sec |
0 sec |
120 sec |
| Export two volume files |
0 sec |
120 sec |
-120 sec |
| Refresh intersection volumes |
0 sec |
15 sec |
-15 sec |
| Modify/enter volumes manually |
600 sec |
0 sec |
600 sec |
| Check for errors |
200 sec |
0 sec |
200 sec |
| Subtotal |
920 sec |
135 sec |
785 sec (13.1 min) |
| Total Time: |
1940 sec |
355 sec |
1585 sec (26.4 min) |
| Average Time Per Intersection |
388 sec |
71 sec |
317 sec (5.3 min) |
| So, an experienced user will spend about 6.5 minutes per intersection using the manual process, assuming everything goes perfectly, while a TIAH user will spend less than 1.2 minutes per intersection - a 5.3 minute savings on average. If shaving off 5.3 min (or more, often much more, in real-life situations) per intersection doesn't look like much, take a look at the chart below: |
The above chart assumes one original and one revised report submittals and a loaded rate of $40/hr (for manual data entry). The amount of savings grows quickly with additional report revisions (common).
For example, a TIAH user can easily realize an additional profit of nearly $320 on a study with fifteen intersections and six exhibits. If two, instead of the one assumed here, revisions of the volume exhibits are required, this same user would save nearly $480, and so on. In practical applications, traffic analysts often want to evaluate and print out intersection volume exhibits corresponding to multiple model scenarios ("tweaking" the model) before producing the "final" exhibits - TIAH allows them to do that with almost no cost to the project.
In other words, TIAH users have the freedom to: -
Run and print as many model scenarios as desired with almost no additional cost to the project - something that is much too costly in a non-TIAH environment -
Increase the TIA project profit margin from the first time they use TIAH -
Eliminate 100% of manual data entry errors (which are very common) and the cost associated with error checking, thus further increasing productivity and improving the bottom line. Here is what typical users say about TIAH: "TIAHelper cuts the time to prepare report figures in half!"
"TIAH eliminates time consuming errors when preparing report figures."
"TIAHelper saves time and is easy to format files to insert."
"TIAHelper is a beneficial program to have - it is quicker and more accurate than entering volumes manually, is user friendly, and has nice, clean graphics on top of all! It's a wonderful program!"
"TIAH is the best thing since sliced bread. Once we complete the initial figure setup to input the turning movement volumes, with TIAH, the entire process to upload volumes for TRAFFIX to AutoCAD is less than 5 minutes... With NO mistakes. And, it is a great tool just to review overall traffic assignment volumes in an intersection format! Extraordinary product!"
Finally, TIAH has almost no learning curve! If you already use Traffix, Synchro or Excel for your analysis and AutoCAD to produce your intersection volume exhibits, TIAH requires no additional skills whatsoever. Simply install it, point to the data files, and insert the intersection volume symbols (blocks) where you want them in your AutoCAD layout - TIAH will do the rest. Get your copy of latest version of TIAH here.
Questions? Email us at sales@tiahelper.com - we will respond to your inquiry within 24 hours.
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