Speed management as a measure to improve road safety on Polish regional roads

Abstract

The article presents the issue of the implementation of speed management measures on regional roads, whose character requires the use of different solutions than those on national roads. The authors briefly described speed management measures, the conditions for their implementation and their effectiveness with reference to environmental conditions and road safety. The further part of the paper presents selected results of the authors' research into the speed on various road segments equipped with different speed management measures. The estimations were made as to the impact of local speed limits and traffic calming measures on drivers' behaviour in free flow conditions. This research found that the introduction of the local speed limits cause reduction in average speed and 85th percentile speed up to 11.9 km/h (14.4%) and 16.3 km/h (16.8%) respectively. These values are averaged in the tested samples. Speed reduction depends strongly on the value of the limit and local circumstances. Despite speed reduction, the share of drivers who do not comply with speed limits was still high and ranged from 43% in the case of a 70 km/h limit, up to 89% for a 40 km/h limit. As far as comprehensive traffic calming measures are concerned, results show decrease in average speed and 85th percentile speed up to 18.1 km/h and 20.8 km/h respectively. For some road segments, however, the values of average speed and 85th percentile speed increased. It confirms that the effectiveness of speed management measures is strongly determined by local circumstances.

Safety factor in the sustainable fleet management model

“…In the aspect of improving road safety, much research is carried out, including the use of various technologies, e.g. (Gaca and Pogodzińska, 2017;Hu et al, 2017). The car manufacturer Volvo announced that it plans to introduce a maximum speed limit of 180 km / h in all of its cars from 2021.…”

“…The purchase cost of the vehicle cp(v) was also taken into account, and the additional cost incurred to equip the vehicle with additional safety systems cs(v). The last component of the criterion function was written with a formula (8) and applied to the driver's costs. It includes a bonus bk(i,k) for the task performed, the annual cost of employee cstk(k) and the costs of t eco-driving cszke(k) and safe driving cszks(k) training.…”

Assessing the information flows and established their effects on the results of driver’s activity

“…The study used a monopolar recordthe activity of one tap at an electrically neutral point (Desimone & Duncan, 1995). In the Cardiosens system, a digital 3-channel microprocessor-based cardiograph is used as a portable ECG monitor recorder, recording an electronic Archives of Transport, 45(1), [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]2018 signal to a removable SD/MMC flash card (Zhuk et. al,, 2017).…”

“…Dependence of the change in the time of distraction of the tester from the performance of the main activity (  ), taking into account the specific gravity of the Delta-rhythm (  ) ( Figure 6) and thetarhythm (  ) (Figure 7), which reflect the inhibitory processes in the cerebral cortex from full power signal, to which the signals of , , , ,      -Archives of Transport, 45(1), [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]2018 rhythms are related, are linear in nature and indicate that as the percentage of signals from these rhythms increases, the time of abstraction from performing the main activity increases. Further, statistical equations and regression methods were used to derive linear equations (5)(6)(7)(8) and build the dependences ( Figures 6-9) of the time of abstraction from the performance of the main activity, taking into account the quantitative characteristics of the prevalence of excitatory and inhibitory processes in the cerebral cortex: fast (β + γ) and slow (δ + θ) rhythms of the EEG, as well as the forces of exciting and inhibitory processes in the cerebral cortex: fast (β -γ) and slow (δ -θ) EEG rhythms.…”

“…The given regression equations have statistical significance, while the value of the linear correlation tends to 1, which for equations (3)(4)(7)(8) indicates the presence of a direct linear relationship between the variables considered, and for equations (1-2, 5-6, 9-10) of the inverse linear connection. The calculated value of Fisher's criterion for models of changing the time of abstraction from the Archives of Transport, 45(1), [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]2018 performance of the main activity, taking into account the EEG indices (1-10) reflects the informative nature of the model, while the average approximation error is large enough; however, in the framework of the study, the construction of these models is necessary for determining the character of the dependence in constructing a general mathematical model of influence of information flows, which is displayed by EEG indicators, for the time of distraction from the performance of the driver's primary activity.…”