Event Description/Abstract

Managing traffic in workzones presents significant mobility and safety challenges for agencies. The goals of a workzone traffic management plan are to safely slow vehicles ahead of the workzone, maintain speeds that provide for the safety of motorists and construction workers, and manage the growth of queues. Variable speed limits have historically been presented as a technology that can dynamically regulate speed in response to prevailing traffic conditions. However, techniques used to evaluate the impact of variable speed limits typically use aggregated statistics such as mean and standard deviation to determine the “typical” speed reduction. This paper presents a new methodology to evaluate the impact of variable speed limit signage based on individual vehicle-matching. The speeds and speed changes of these matched vehicles were used to analyze individual driver response to the variable speed limits. This allows agencies to understand the impact variable speed limit signage has on the distribution of vehicle speeds. It was concluded that vehicles need to observe multiple signs prior to any tangible reduction in speed limit. Placing signs on both shoulders and in multiple longitudinal locations have a greater impact on speeds than a single sign.

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Variable Speed Limit Study Upstream of an Indiana Work Zone with Vehicle-Matching

Managing traffic in workzones presents significant mobility and safety challenges for agencies. The goals of a workzone traffic management plan are to safely slow vehicles ahead of the workzone, maintain speeds that provide for the safety of motorists and construction workers, and manage the growth of queues. Variable speed limits have historically been presented as a technology that can dynamically regulate speed in response to prevailing traffic conditions. However, techniques used to evaluate the impact of variable speed limits typically use aggregated statistics such as mean and standard deviation to determine the “typical” speed reduction. This paper presents a new methodology to evaluate the impact of variable speed limit signage based on individual vehicle-matching. The speeds and speed changes of these matched vehicles were used to analyze individual driver response to the variable speed limits. This allows agencies to understand the impact variable speed limit signage has on the distribution of vehicle speeds. It was concluded that vehicles need to observe multiple signs prior to any tangible reduction in speed limit. Placing signs on both shoulders and in multiple longitudinal locations have a greater impact on speeds than a single sign.