Assessing the Effectiveness of an Integrated Speed Management Plan on Highways

Amr Shalkamy ,Maged Gouda ,Karim El-Basyouny

doi:10.7176/cer/13-1-04

Abstract

Manned speed enforcement has long been used as a safety measure to improve drivers' compliance with posted speed limits on highways. The sustainable presence of police squads at high-risk locations is key to the successful implementation of an enforcement program and is usually supported by other measures, such as educational campaigns, messages, and warnings. The goal of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of an integrated speed management plan that is focused on manned traffic enforcement at three highway locations near the City of Leduc, Canada. Baseline speed data was collected and used to develop an enforcement deployment schedule. Following a public educational and engagement program, the enforcement plan was implemented. A detailed analysis was conducted for the speed data before, during, and after manned enforcement operations. To account for potential confounding factors, the evaluation method utilized a control site to correct for trends and other effects. The results showed that there was a statistically significant reduction in the average speed of vehicles that ranged from 1.14 to 8.96 km/h while the number of speed violations dropped by up to 25.5% at enforcement locations. Overall, the results from this study demonstrated that implementing an integrated speed management program, with manned enforcement at its core, has a high potential to improve safety by improving compliance, reducing the number of violations, and decreasing the average speeds on highways. The sustained manned enforcement is expected to increase drivers’ compliance with speed limits, which should eventually reduce collisions and improve safety. Keywords: Vehicular Speed, Manned Enforcement, Speed Violations, Safety Impacts, Speed Limit Compliance DOI: 10.7176/CER/13-1-04 Publication date: January 31 st 2021

Highlights

Road collisions exert a large social and economic burden on society, because they are a major cause of serious injuries and deaths, especially among economically productive young adults (Who 2015)
Based on the collected speed data, the enforcement schedule was set to target the times with the highest number of speed violations, and a deployment schedule was developed to determine the placement of police squads at specific locations and times
The results show similar trends at all locations indicating that the study was effective in reducing the average speed and the number of speed violations

Summary

Introduction

Road collisions exert a large social and economic burden on society, because they are a major cause of serious injuries and deaths, especially among economically productive young adults (Who 2015). In 2004, the annual social cost associated with road collisions was estimated at $25 billion annually (Tay 2010). This burden greatly impacts individual families and society at large, due to the loss of a loved one, and as a result of sustaining life-threatening injuries that might leave some individuals with functional disabilities that may last from 6–12 months, or even longer, after being involved in a road collision (Peden 2008). This could be achieved through improving the design and safety of road facilities as well as launching integrated initiatives that aim to modifying drivers’ behavior and prevent collisions (Shalkamy et al 2018; Shalkamy & El-Basyouny 2020)

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Conclusion