Assessing the Effectiveness of an Integrated Speed Management Plan on Highways

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.