Transcript Spot Speed Studies - Icivil-Hu

Traffic Engineering Studies
(Spot Speed Studies)
Chapter 4
Dr. TALEB AL-ROUSAN
Introduction
 Availability of good transportation provided high
standard of living.
 However, several problems related to transportation
mode exist:
 Highway related crashes.
 Parking difficulties.
 Congestion.
 Delay.
 To reduce negative impacts of highway, it is necessary
to collect information that describes the extent of the
problem and identifies their location.
 Such information is usually collected by conducting
traffic surveys and studies.
Categories of Traffic Studies
1. Inventories: provide a list of graphic display
of existing information (street widths, transit
routes, traffic regulations, available parking
spaces, etc…).
2. Administrative studies: use existing
engineering records to prepare an inventory
of the relevant data which might include also
the results of surveys.
3. Dynamic studies: Involves the collection of
data under operational conditions and
includes studies of speed, traffic volume,
travel time and delay, parking, and crashes
Dynamic Studies/ Spot Speed
Studies
 Spot speed studies are conducted to
estimate the distribution of speeds of
vehicles in a stream of traffic at a
particular location on a highway.
 Speed: the rate of movement of a vehicle
(mi/h) or (km/h).
 Carried out by recording the speeds of
samples of vehicles at specified location.
 Speed characteristics will be valid only for
the traffic and of environment conditions
that exist at the time of the study.
Speed Characteristics Uses
 Establish parameters for traffic operations and control
(e.g. speed zones, speed limits (85th%), and passing
restrictions.
 Evaluate the effectiveness of traffic control devices (e.g.
variable message signs at work zones).
 Monitor effects of speed monitoring programs.
 Evaluate or determine the adequacy of highway
geometric characteristics (e.g. radii of H. curves and
length of V. curves).
 Evaluate the effect of speed on highway safety through
analysis of crash data for different speed
characteristics.
 Determine weather complaints about speeding are
valid.
 Determine speed trends.
Location for Spot Speed Studies
Depends on the anticipated use of the results and
include:
1. Locations that represent different traffic conditions on
highways: used for basic data collection.
2. Midblocks for urban highways and straight level sections
of rural highways: used for speed trend analysis.
3. Any location can be used for the solution of a specific
traffic engineering problem.
 Unbiased data should be obtain which require that:
 Drivers should be unaware of the study being conducted.

Equipments (radars) are concealed fro drivers.
 Observers conducting the study should be inconspicuous.
 Statistically adequate number of vehicle speeds be
recorded.

Time of Day and Duration of Spot
Speed Studies
 Time of day for conducting a speed study depends on
the purpose of the study.
 When purpose is to establish posted speed limits,
observe speed trends, or collect basic data: It is
recommended to conduct the study when traffic is
free-flowing (i.e. Off-peak hours).
 When speed study is conducted in response to citizen
complaints: It is useful if the time period selected
reflect the nature of the complaints.
 Duration of the study should be such that the
minimum number of vehicle speeds required for
statistical analysis is recorded.
 Duration is typically at least 1 hour and the sample
size is at least 30 vehicles.
Sample Size for Spot Speed
Studies
 The calculated mean (Average) speed is used to
represent the true mean value of all vehicle speeds.
 The accuracy of this assumption depends on the
number of vehicles in the sample (larger sample size
increase the probability that the estimated mean is
not significantly different from the true mean.
 Minimum sample size depends on the precision level
desired.
 Precision level: the degree of confidence that the
sampling error of a produced estimate will fall within a
desirable fixed range.
 Confidence level is given in terms of (α) where α =
(100 – confidence level).
 Commonly used confidence level for speed counts is
95%.
Sample Size for Spot Speed
Studies Cont.
 It is also assumed that the normal distribution
describes the speed distribution.
 The properties of the normal dist. Are then used to
determine the min. sample size of an acceptable error
(d) of the estimated speed.
N= [(Z
s/d]2
N: min. sample size.
Z: number of standard deviations corresponding to the
required confidence (1.96 for 95% confidence… See
Table 4.1)
s: Standard deviation (mi/h)
d: limit of acceptable error in the average speed
estimate.
Normal Distribution
 Given by:
f(x) =(1/(s sqrt(2p))) e^ [–(x-m)2/2s2]
m= true mean of population and s= true standard deviation
 Basic Properties:
 Symmetrical about the mean
 Total area under curve =1.0 or 100%.
 Area under curve between (m+s) and (m-s) = .6827
 Area under curve between (m+1.96s) and (m-1.96s) =
.9545
 Area under curve between (m+2s) and (m-2s) = .9545
 Area under curve between (m+3s) and (m-3s) = .9971
 Area under curve between (m+ ∞s) and (m- ∞s) =
1.0
Normal Distribution
 Specific conclusions can be drawn from
these properties:
 For example: 95% of all vehicle
speeds will be between (m+1.96 s) and
(m-1.96 s).
 Similarly , if a vehicle is selected at
random, there is a 95% chance that
its speed will be between (m+1.96 s)
and (m-1.96 s).
Table 4.1 Constant Corresponding
to Level of Confidence
Confidence Level %
68. 3
86.6
90.0
95.0
95.5
98.8
99.0
99.7
Constant (Z)
1.00
1.50
1.64
1.96
2.00
2.50
2.58
3.00
Significant Values That Describe
Speed Characteristics
1.
Average Speed: Arithmetic mean of all observed
vehicle speeds at that location (Sum of all spot
speeds divided by the number of recorded speeds).
ū = [∑(fi ui)]/ ∑(fi)
Ū= Arithmetic mean
fi =number of observations in each speed group
ui = mid value for the ith speed group
or
ū = [∑(ui)]/ N
N=Number of observed values
ui =speed of the ith vehicle
Significant Values That Describe
Speed Characteristics Cont.
2. Median Speed: the speed at the middle value
in a series of spot speeds that are arranged
in ascending order. 50% of the speed values
will be greater than the median and 50%
will be less than the median.
3. Modal Speed: The speed value that occur
most frequently in a sample of spot speeds.
4. The ith percentile spot speed: The speed
value below which i percent of the vehicles
travel.
5. Pace: The range of speed (usually 10 mi/h
interval) that has the greatest number of
observations.
Significant Values That Describe
Speed Characteristics Cont.
6. Standard deviation of speeds: A measure of the spread of the individual
speeds, and is given by
S = Sqrt [∑(ui- ū)2]/(N-1)]
Or when presented as classes
S = Sqrt [[∑(fi ui2) - (∑(fi ui))2 /∑(fi)]/ ∑(fi-1)]
S = Sqrt [∑(fi (ui- ū)2)/ (N-1)]
fi : frequency of speed class i
ui :mid value of speed class i
Methods of Conducting Spot Speed
Studies
 Two Methods available:
1. Manual: Seldom used
2. Automatic: several automatic devices
available to obtain instantaneous speed,
which may be grouped into 3 categories:
1. Road detectors.
2. Doppler principle meters (Radars).
3. Devices that use principles of electronics.
Road Detectors
 Two groups:
 Pneumatic road tubes.
 Induction loops.
 These detectors can be used to collect data on speeds
at the same time the volume data are being collected.
 They are laid with 3 to 15 ft distance between
detectors
 Advantages: human errors are reduced.
 Disadvantages:
 Expensive
 When pneumatic tubes are used, they are
conspicuous, which affect the driver behavior
resulting in distortion of speed distribution.
Road Detectors/ Pneumatic Road
Tubes
 Laid across the lane.
 When a vehicle passes over the tube, an air impulse is
transmitted through the tube to the counter.
 When used for speed measurements, two tubes are
placed across the lane about 6 ft apart.
 Impulse recorded when front wheels passes over the
first tube
 Shortly afterward a second impulse is recorded when
the front wheel of the same car passes over the
second tube.
 The time elapsed between the two impulses and the
distance between the tubes are used to compute
speed of the vehicle.
Road Detectors/ Inductive Loops
 Rectangular wire loop buried under the
roadway surface.
 It serves as the detector of a resonant
circuit.
 It operates on the principle that a
disturbance in the electrical field is created
when a motor vehicle passes a cross it,
Which cause a change in potential that is
amplified, resulting in an impulse being
sent to the counter.
Doppler-Principle Meters (Radars)
 Works on the principle that when a signal is
transmitted onto a moving vehicle, the change in
frequency between the transmitted signal and the
reflected signal is proportional to the speed of the
moving vehicle.
 Advantages: if equipment is located in inconspicuous
position, the influence on driver behavior will be
considerably reduced.
 Examples:
 SpeedAce Meter: pocket-sized, hand-held laser speed
detection. Used to measure speed of individual
vehicles at a range of up to 1312 ft.
 RTMS meter: multilane presence radar. Can be
mounted on the side of the highway and obtain data
on speeds of vehicles in up to 8 lanes seperately.
Electronic-Principle Detectors
 Presence of vehicle is detected through
electronic means, and information on these
vehicles is obtained.
 Advantage over road detectors is that it is
not necessary to physically install loops or
detectors on the road.
 Example: Video image processing (known
as machine-vision-system).
 Consist of : electronic camera +
microprocessor which determine the traffic
characteristics in real time.
Electronic-Principle Detectors
 Example on such system is Autoscope.
 Autoscope developed in USA
 Autoscope: a wireless detector with a single camera
that can replace many loops, thereby providing a wide
area detection system.
 Advantage:
 Monitor many locations within the camera field of
view.. location can be selected by user.
 Can be installed without disturbing traffic operations.
 Can extract traffic parameters like volume and queue
length.
Presentation & Analysis of Spot
Speed Data
 The data collected from a sample of
vehicles are used to determine the speed
characteristics of the whole population of
vehicles traveling on the study site.
 Statistical methods are used for analysis.
 Several characteristics can be determined
either by direct calculations or by graphical
presentation.
 Presentation format most commonly used is
the frequency distribution.
Presentation & Analysis of Spot
Speed Data Cont.

Steps to prepare frequency dist. Table:
1.
Select number of classes (# of velocity ranges): usually
between 8 – 20 (Another technique: determine range for a
class size of 8, then determine range for a class size of 20, by
dividing the difference between max and min speeds by 8 then
by 20, then selecting a range between these max and min
ranges).
The mid value for each class is used as a speed value for that
class
Plot frequency histogram (speed mid values vs frequency)
Frequency distribution curve (speed mid values vs percentage
of frequency in each class).
Cumulative distribution (upper limits of speed classes vs
cumulative percentage of frequency)
2.
3.
4.
5.

See Example 4.2 for determining the speed characteristics
from a set of speed data.
Comparison of Mean Speeds
 It some times necessary to determine
whether there is a significant difference
between the mean speeds of two spot
speed studies.
 This is done by comparing the absolute
difference between the sample mean
speeds against the product of the standard
deviation of the difference in means and
the factor Z for a given confidence level.
 If the absolute difference is greater, it can
be then concluded that there is a significant
difference in sample means at that specific
confidence level.
Comparison of Mean Speeds Cont.
 The standard deviation of the difference in means is
given by:
Sd = Sqrt[(S12/n1) + (S22/n2)]
ni = sample size of study i
Si2= variance about the mean of study I
 If u ū1 mean speed of study 1, ū2 mean speed of study
2, and
l ū1 – ū2l > Z Sd
 it can be concluded that the mean speeds are significantly
different at the confidence level corresponding to Z.
 Since it is usual to use the 95% confidence level in traffic
engineering studies, the conclusion therefore will be
based on whether l ū1 – ū2l is greater than 1.96 Sd
 ٍSee Example 4.3.