Browsing by Subject "Speed data"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Minnesota Speed Management Program
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, Office of Research Services, 2007-05) Harder, Kathleen A.; Bloomfield, John R.
    The Minnesota Speed Management Program (MSMP), a cooperative project between the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, was developed within the framework of the Minnesota Comprehensive Highway Safety Plan. The overall goal was to reduce the number of fatal and life-changing crashes on Minnesota highways. The MSMP involved a speed limit adjustment; on 850 miles of Minnesota's 55 mph highways the speed limit was increased to 60 mph. It involved increased speed enforcement--by State Patrol, county sheriffs, and local law enforcement--on selected highways. There were four waves of Enhanced Enforcement (one of six weeks, three of eight weeks) each followed by four weeks of Regular Enforcement. The MSMP involved extensive public education, organized by the Office of Traffic Safety, with approximately 10,000 public service messages presented on the radio. Two evaluation efforts were conducted. The University of Minnesota compared travel speed data and crash data obtained during the MSMP with historical data. Throughout the MSMP, there were decreases in the number of drivers traveling at least 10 mph above the speed limits: decreases of -28.7% on 2-Lane/2-Way Highways; -28.7% on 4-Lane Divided Highways; -42.9% on Rural Freeways; and -11.2% mph on Urban Freeways. The University's evaluation also showed there were reductions in the numbers of fatal and life-changing crashes during the MSMP. MarketLine Research conducted the second evaluation, using telephone surveys, and found nine in ten drivers support the speed limit increase from 55 mph to 60 mph in both Metro and Greater Minnesota. The MSMP, in concert with other efforts that are part of the Minnesota Comprehensive Highway Safety Plan, resulted in reductions in the number of speeders on Minnesota Highways and reductions in the number of fatal and life-changing crashes, making Minnesota's roads safer.
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    Evaluation of R1-6 Gateway Treatment Alternatives for Pedestrian Crossings: Follow Up Report
    (Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, 2017-06) Van Houten, Ron; Hochmuth, Jonathan
    Monthly follow-up data confirmed that permanent in roadway installations of the R1-6 gateway treatment led to an increase in the percentage of drivers yielding to pedestrians at midblock and multilane urban and suburban locations from 15% to 70% and that these increases endured without any decrement over the spring, summer and fall of 2016. Speed data collected at each site showed 4 to 5 mph reduction in mean when motorists traversed the crosswalk when pedestrians were absent. These speed changes persisted over time. An additional study showed that placing the signs between 5, 10, 20, 30, and 50 ft in advance of the crosswalk were equally effective and they enticed drivers to yield further ahead of the crosswalk. Data on sign survival showed that signs mounted on a curb type mount with a flexible rubber attachment all survived while only 58% of the flush mounted signs with a pivoting base survived. Data showed that none of the signs mounted on top of the edge of a curb on a refuge island or median island, curb extension, or the curb on the edge of the roadway under FHWA permission to experiment were destroyed or damaged.
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    Improving Freeway Traffic Speed Estimation Using High-Resolution Loop Detector Data
    (Intelligent Transportation Systems Institute, Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, 2013-04) Liu, Henry; Sun, Jie
    In this project, we developed an innovative methodology to solve a long-standing traffic engineering problem, i.e. measuring traffic speed using data from single inductive loop detectors. Traditionally, traffic speeds are estimated using aggregated detector data with a manually calibrated effective vehicle length. The calibration effort (usually through running probe vehicles), however, is time consuming and costly. Instead of using aggregated data, in this project, our data collection system records every vehicle-detector actuation "event" so that for each vehicle we can identify the time gap and the detector occupation time. With such high-resolution "event-based" data, we devised a method to differentiate regular cars with longer vehicles. The proposed method is based on the observation that longer vehicles will have longer detector occupation time. Therefore, we can identify longer vehicles by detecting the changes of occupation time in a vehicle platoon. The "event-based" detector data can be obtained through the implementation of the SMART-Signal (Systematic Monitoring of Arterial Road Traffic Signals) system, which was developed by the principal investigator and his students in the last five years. The method is tested using the data from Trunk Highway 55, which is a high-speed arterial corridor controlled by coordinated traffic signals. The result shows that the proposed method can correctly identify most of the vehicles passing by inductive loop detectors. The identification of long vehicles will improve the estimation of effective vehicle length on roads. Consequently, speed estimation from the inductive loop detector is improved.
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    Integrate RTMC Vehicle Classification into the Current Detector Volume Data
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2020-11) Kwon, Taek M.
    Collection of vehicle classification data is considered an essential part of traffic monitoring programs. The objective of this project is to integrate the raw classification data generated by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) Regional Transportation Management Center (RTMC) into the existing volume data managed by the Traffic Forecasting and Analysis (TFA) Section under the Office of Transportation System Management (OTSM). RTMC manages a large number of traffic sensors in the Twin Cities’ freeway network and continuously collects a huge amount of traffic data. Recently, it added Wavetronix radar sensors, from which length-based classification and speed data are generated in addition to typical volume and occupancy data generated by loop detectors. This project integrates this classification data into the existing TFA volume data, which could save cost and time for TFA in the future by using existing classification data. The project team also integrated the RTMC speed data for the locations where it was available. The final deliverable of this project was a software tool called detHealth_app, from which users can retrieve classification and speed data in addition to volume/occupancy data in multiple formats including Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) format. The detHealth_app program was thoroughly tested and has been successfully used by MnDOT TFA.
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    Vehicle Speed Impacts of Occasional Hazard (Playground) Warning Signs
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2012-02) Davis, Gary; Knapp, Keith K.; Hourdos, John
    The main objective of this study was to estimate the speed impact of occasional hazard (playground) warning (OHPW) signs along residential streets. Three types of data were collected at each of three study sites approximately one month before and one week to one month after the installation of a pair of OHPW signs. Vehicle speed data were collected with a pneumatic tube device. Manual observations were recorded, and focused on the magnitude and location of the on-street parking and park and/or playground activities occurring at the study sites. Linear regression analysis was used to estimate the change in mean vehicle speed associated with the presence of the OHPW signs, while controlling for the effects due to activity levels on the streets and the playgrounds. At one site the OHPW sign had no discernible effect on mean vehicle speeds, while at the other two sites mean vehicle speeds decreased by 1.5 mph and 0.9 mph following installation of the OHPW signs.