Abstract
Driving speed is one of the most important factors in road safety and speed not only affects the severity of a crash, but is also related to the risk of being involved in a crash. Inappropriate speed is responsible for more than a third of all fatal accidents occurring on roads. In Poland every year majority of all traffic accidents occur in urban areas from which most is recorded at junctions and their vicinity. Hence it is of great importance to effectively manage speed and enforce speed limits on existing road network. Replacing already existing three- or four-arm junctions by roundabouts and construction new ones is considered to be a good solution for safety improvements and also are pointed to be within traffic calming features but their effectiveness is influencing by type, shape and geometry of the junction. The aim of this paper is to analyse the effectiveness of chosen traffic calming measures in comparison with the effectiveness of roundabouts. Research area was located in city of Bialystok, Poland and included a group of commonly applied physical measures together with small and mini roundabouts. Measurements of instantaneous speed by utilizing GPS data logger and assessment of the extent impact of selected TCMs on drivers’ manoeuvres were undertaken to develop the investigation. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.9.4.7357
Highlights
IntroductionTraffic management is related to planning, coordinating, controlling and organizing traffic to achieve efficiency and effectiveness of the existing road capacity
Special attention in terms of traffic safety is given to speed management that emerges from the need to limit the negative effects of excessive and inappropriate speeds
Speeding is being a causation factor in around one third of fatal accidents while speed is an aggravating factor in the severity of all accidents and more than two-thirds of these casualties occur at urban junctions
Summary
Traffic management is related to planning, coordinating, controlling and organizing traffic to achieve efficiency and effectiveness of the existing road capacity. This includes techniques and strategies that generally are used to mitigate congestion, minimize delays, ensure smooth, fast but safe and economically reasonable conditions for vehicular movement from one place to another and are intended to improve traffic safety for all road users. Special attention in terms of traffic safety is given to speed management that emerges from the need to limit the negative effects of excessive and inappropriate speeds Both excessive speed (driving above the speed limits) and inappropriate speed (driving too fast for the prevailing conditions, but within the limits) are within a definition of speeding and are very dangerous and undesirable.
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