The Effect of Speed Humps on Highways Pavement Condition

Abstract

Speed humps used as a tool of traffic calming technique that applied to force drivers to reduce their vehicle’ speeds at some locations. For developed countries, the implementations of speed humps are often used within residential areas as well as at locations of schools crossing. For developing countries (e.g. Iraq), speed humps are used even at urban and urban highways. This paper investigates the effect of applying such speed humps on pavement condition index (PCI). For the purpose of this study, ten urban and rural highway sites that paved by asphalt concrete have been selected from Al-Diwaniyah city, Iraq. Each site has been divided to sections before and after the humps. Each section has been surveyed to record the distress types used in calculations the values of PCI. It has been noticed that the rutting distress is the dominant type for sections just before the humps. The PCI values were significantly lower at sections near the humps compared with the faraway sections. In addition, the effect of speed humps on the PCI values can be neglected at urban highways where minimal trucks used these highways. The results of the paper suggested that an attention should be provided to identify reasonable warrants for installing of speed humps on flexible highway pavements.