Rural variable speed limits : phase II.
-
2012-05-01
-
Details:
-
Creators:
-
Corporate Creators:
-
Corporate Contributors:
-
Subject/TRT Terms:
-
Publication/ Report Number:
-
Resource Type:
-
Geographical Coverage:
-
Corporate Publisher:
-
Abstract:The Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) installed its first variable speed limit (VSL) corridor along
Interstate 80 in the Elk Mountain Corridor in the Spring of 2009 in an effort to improve safety and reduce road closures,
particularly during winter storm events. Since that time, four additional variable speed limit corridors have been
implemented; three additional corridors along segments of Interstate 80 and one on WY 28, a rural two lane highway
through the area of South Pass. There were three main objectives to this research effort: develop control strategy for the
operation of VSL corridors, analyze the safety effects of the VSL system, and determine the impacts of the VSL on driver
speed behavior. For the development of a control strategy, both weather and speed variables were considered. Initially a
simple linear regression approach was considered but the complexity of the weather and speed behavior led to a regression
tree based control strategy with a self-learning feedback loop using machine learning. For the safety task, descriptive
baseline safety was analyzed for all five corridors. Since the Elk Mountain Corridor is the only VSL system in operation
for more than two winter seasons, it was used for an Empirical Bayes (EB) before and after analysis, which indicated some
statistically significant changes in crash frequency for just a few of the corridor segments. A weather-based safety analysis
was performed on the four interstate VSL corridors and results from this analysis indicate a statistically significant
reduction in crashes after the VSLs were implemented. Analyses of speed variables indicate a reduction in speed variation
with the implementation of the VSL system. Modeling of the difference between observed and posted speeds show a
reduction in speed compliance related to large reductions in posted speed limits.
-
Format:
-
Funding:
-
Collection(s):
-
Main Document Checksum:
-
Download URL:
-
File Type: