---
title: "Why Black Tubes Are Stretched Across Roads in Greenwood"
url: https://www.heregreenwood.com/2026/10/17/scdot-road-tubes-counting-traffic-greenwood-streets/
date: 2026-10-17T05:23:16-04:00
modified: 2026-10-17T05:23:16-04:00
author: "Clarence Marshall"
categories: ["Traffic"]
site: "HERE Greenwood"
attribution: "HERE Greenwood"
---

# Why Black Tubes Are Stretched Across Roads in Greenwood

> GREENWOOD, S.C. — Drivers in Greenwood who have rolled over thin black hoses taped across city streets lately are helping the state count cars. The South Carolina Department of Transportation says the lines belong to its Traffic Count Program, which tallies how many vehicles use a given road. The hoses are pneumatic road tubes, and

*Source: [HERE Greenwood](https://www.heregreenwood.com/2026/10/17/scdot-road-tubes-counting-traffic-greenwood-streets/) — October 17, 2026 by Clarence Marshall*

GREENWOOD, S.C. — Drivers in Greenwood who have rolled over thin black hoses taped across city streets lately are helping the state count cars. The South Carolina Department of Transportation says the lines belong to its Traffic Count Program, which tallies how many vehicles use a given road.

The hoses are pneumatic road tubes, and the agency’s Road Data Services office puts them down for traffic studies that happen twice a year. The strips register a vehicle every time a set of tires crosses them.

Planners use the totals to see how traffic moves, estimate how busy a road will get in the years ahead and choose where to spend money on construction, upgrades and upkeep. The department also hands the numbers to the Federal Highway Administration through the Highway Performance Monitoring System, and the counts play a part in how federal road dollars are divided. Other government agencies, companies and residents can use the figures as well.

The temporary tubes are only one piece of the effort. SCDOT keeps more than 170 permanent count stations around South Carolina that log traffic every hour through sensors built into the pavement, and it posts average daily traffic estimates for over 12,000 spots statewide through an online tool called the Traffic Analysis and Data Application.

Anyone curious about how many cars use a Greenwood County road can pull up the department’s annual average daily traffic sheets, which are sorted by county and year, or download the full statewide count file.