Effective July 1, 2010, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) increased the maximum posted speed limit on interstates and similar facilities from 65 to 70 mph, if recommended following an engineering study. As a result, VDOT performed engineering studies on selected rural interstates posted at 65 mph. By November 2010, VDOT had increased the speed limit from 65 to 70 mph for approximately 670 centerline miles of select rural interstates. This paper presents the results of an empirical Bayes before–after study into the safety and operational effects of the speed limit increase. The analysis focused on total, injury, run-off-road, and truck-related crashes. Comparison segments were used to develop annual adjustment factors, account for regional differences, and identify underlying crash trends in the period before the speed limit increase. At the aggregate level, the results indicated no increase in any of the focus crash types after the increase. Focusing on sites without other changes, the increased speed limit did not increase or decrease any of the crash types. The disaggregate analysis provided further insight into the circumstances in which the change in posted speed limit had more and less pronounced impacts; specifically, that segment type (base or interchange) influenced safety: interchange segments observed statistically significant increases in total, run-off-road, and truck-related crashes. The disaggregate analysis also showed that roadway improvements may help to offset the safety impact of increasing the posted speed limit.

This study uses a suite of performance measures that was developed by taking into consideration various aspects of congestion and reliability, to assess impacts of safety projects on congestion. Safety projects are necessary to help move Virginia’s roadways toward safer operation, but can contribute to congestion and unreliability during execution, and can affect operations after execution. However, safety projects are assessed primarily for safety improvements, not for congestion. This study identifies an appropriate suite of measures, and quantifies and compares the congestion and reliability impacts of safety projects on roadways for the periods before, during, and after project execution. The paper presents the performance measures, examines their sensitivity based on operating conditions, defines thresholds for congestion and reliability, and demonstrates the measures using a set of Virginia safety projects. The data set consists of 10 projects totalling 92 mi and more than 1M data points. The study found that, overall, safety projects tended to have a positive impact on congestion and reliability after completion, and the congestion variability measures were sensitive to the threshold of reliability. The study concludes with practical recommendations for primary measures that may be used to measure overall impacts of safety projects: percent vehicle miles traveled (VMT) reliable with a customized threshold for Virginia; percent VMT delayed; and time to travel 10 mi. However, caution should be used when applying the results directly to other situations, because of the limited number of projects used in the study.

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