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The effect of enforcement on speed behaviour

The objective of this literature study (D-98-8), which was conducted within the framework of the EU MASTER project, was to give an overview of research on speed enforcement and its effect on speed behaviour and safety. In the past ten to fifteen years many reports and articles have been written on this subject. In this study, which does not have the ambition to be complete, examples of experiments at locations, road stretches and road networks are given. Most of the literature deals with enforcement at a locality or on a road stretch. There are few reports on area wide enforcement. Research reports from the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Australia, some Scandinavian countries, and the USA are reviewed.

It was concluded that the experiments with local speed management showed positive results: the average speed reduced significantly and the number of accidents decreased. Experiments with speed enforcement on routes also showed a reducing effect on the average speed and on the number of serious accidents. Experiments with speed enforcement on road networks showed a variety of outcomes: in some experiments the results were a reduction of the average speed; in other experiments the speed reduction effect was only found for the group excessive speeders. The report concludes with recommendations for efficient (optimal enforcement planning given a certain number of policeman hours) and effective (achievement of aimed speed reduction) speed enforcement strategies.
Safety strategies for rural roads

 

During the period 1997/98, an OECD Scientific Expert Group produced a report about road safety on rural non-motorways and the possibilities of improvement. This report attempted to approach the problem as broadly as possible, in order to enable all the (very divergent) OECD member states to apply it. The Transport Research Centre of the Netherlands Ministry of Transport commissioned SWOV to produce this report as

 

The OECD report itself presents an overview of the safety, in various countries, of rural non-motorways, the accident characteristics, and their possible causes. The usefulness and necessity of a strategic approach to improve safety is then considered. Various measures, fitting within such an approach, are discussed. These are: network planning, infrastructural measures, compliance control, intelligent traffic and transport systems, and trauma management.

 

The possible causes are given of the three most common types of accidents on Dutch rural non-motorways: single-vehicle accidents, crossroads, and head-on collisions. From these, the measures were deduced for improving the situation. These measures involve enforcement and education, infrastructure, and the new intelligent information technology. Such measures can be applied in, respectively, the short term, the short-to-middle term, and the middle-to-long term. The expectations are that, with further elaboration and implementation of the principles of the 'sustainably safe' concept, the safety of rural non-motorways will improve. Of utmost importance here is the redivision of the road network in three mono-functional categories. These are through-roads, residential roads, and collector roads. Equally essential is a consistent road design around each ascribed function.

SWOV Research Activities 11 - March 1999

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