Reflections on the traffic usage recorder with emphasis on traffic engineering

As implied by the title, the intent of this article is to relate the manner of use and value of the Traffic Usage Recorder as applied to telephone traffic engineering. To develop a full appreciation of this, a general knowledge of the responsibility of the traffic engineer is required. In a broad sense, the traffic engineer must see that facilities of the right kind and of the right amounts are in the right place at the right time to give the right grade of telephone service. An important phase in this provision of telephone facilities is in determining the requirements of the telephone subscriber. In the process of estimating subscriber requirements, summarized call carrying and associated equipment usage data are analyzed, projected, and modified to reflect expected growth, new service, and proposed equipment arrangements. The modified basic data are then converted to equipment quantities and trunks through the use of probability tables reflecting the desired grades of service. The first step of this process, the gathering and summarization of usage data, is of prime importance and has been a major problem to the traffic engineer.