Türkiye highway network freight traffic characteristics: Generalizations and evaluations

?Heavy-duty truck? or ?origin-destination? studies are conducted at various periods of time on commercial heavy-duty trucks or buses steering on the highway network and on different control sections by General Directorate of Highways (KGM). The commercial heavy-duty vehicles steering on the control section are stopped, and the brand, version name, origin and destination of the vehicle are obtained by these surveys as well as the weight and type of the transported load.As a result of the mentioned studies conducted by KGM between 1997 and 2006, a database is compiled containing the data about the heavy-duty vehicle traffic obtained by the surveys. Traffic characterization revealing data such as average passenger number or load quantity for each vehicle, average travel distance for each passenger or tons of load, average passenger number or load quantity for each 1 km of travel distance, total transported passenger-km or tons-km and equivalent single axial load (ESAL) applied on the asphalt pavement values are derived from this database. The acquired values are classified and collected according to highway sections, regions and country-wide and to seasons and years, thus, changes and evolutions are considered for generalization.In the light of these evaluations and iterations, country-wide seasonal average passenger number transported by each vehicle is 25.19 persons on spring, 25.56 persons on summer and 25.56 persons on fall between 1997 and 2006 years. Country-wide seasonal average load quantity transported by each vehicle is 7 688 kg on spring, 7 645 kg on summer and 7 621 kg on fall between the same years. Annual country-wide average passenger number transported by each vehicle is 27.50 persons, average load quantity transported by each vehicle is 7 790 kg, average passenger number transported for 1 km of highway is 28.67 persons, average load quantity transported for 1 km of highway is 7 894 kg and average distance for each passenger or 1 tons of load is 700 km and 560 km respectively.