Privacy & Methodology

North Coast Hwy Pulse uses aggregate corridor counts to understand movement patterns on Oceanside’s North Coast Highway.

We measure broad activity signals such as vehicle volume, pedestrian activity, bicycle activity, directional flow, and time-of-day trends. Reports are designed to support community insight, event analysis, business visibility, and North Coast Highway revitalization discussions.

What we do not collect

How reports are produced

Counts are grouped into time windows and reported as aggregate trends. Reports focus on patterns such as peak activity windows, pedestrian share, directional flow, and changes around weather, events, and corridor activity.

Pilot data note

North Coast Hwy Pulse is currently in pilot. Early reports may include calibration and zone-tuning limitations. As the dataset matures, baselines and trend comparisons will become stronger.

Questions

For methodology, privacy, or dataset access questions, contact hello@northcoasthwy.com.
Technical methodology details

This appendix is for researchers, students, journalists, and partners who want the full picture of how the system works. Most visitors don’t need this.

Counting zones

Two horizontal “line” zones count northbound vs. southbound vehicle and pedestrian crossings on PCH. Five “polygon” zones cover sidewalks and crosswalks for pedestrian and bicycle occupancy. A track that crosses a line is counted once per direction. A track that enters an occupancy polygon is counted once per zone, with a short grace period at zone edges to suppress jitter.

Aggregation

Raw count events are rolled up into 1-minute buckets, then 1-hour, then daily. Reports query the appropriate bucket size for their window. Stored fields per event: timestamp, camera id, zone id, object class, direction, and confidence. No image data is retained alongside count records.

Known limitations

Counts come from a single camera view and are affected by occlusion (objects hiding each other), low light, fog, and rain. Pedestrians at the far edge of the camera view are smaller in pixel area and harder to detect. The system began continuous collection on April 5, 2026, so trend comparisons before that date are not available. Counts are best read as a strong directional signal of corridor activity, not a per-vehicle census.

Data access for research

Researchers, students, and nonprofits working on community-impact projects can request a CSV export of historical aggregate counts joined with weather and event context. Contact hello@northcoasthwy.com. Attribution to NorthCoastHwy.com is required.

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