The use of road humps for moderating speeds on Urban streets

doi:10.1016/0001-4575(92)90071-P

Accident Analysis & Prevention

Volume 24, Issue 1, February 1992, Pages 45-56

https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-4575(92)90071-P Get rights and content

Abstract

Road humps are devices placed in the path of traveling vehicles. They are used in many communities to keep a uniform and low speed on a residential street or to reduce speeds at specific locations, such as intersections or pedestrian crosswalks. While the effectiveness of road humps in moderating speeds at the site of installation is generally considered proven, the actual adoption of the device remains controversial at the level of the community and the practicing engineers. The present paper, based on literature review and an international survey, evaluates community acceptance of the device and the factors influencing it; describes the various approaches taken to solve problems such as accommodating public transport and emergency vehicles; and assesses the legal status of the device.

References (9)

E. Kassem et al.
Dynamic considerations of speed control humps
Transportation Research
(1982)
C. Baguley
Speed control humps—Further public road trials
J.P. Clement
Speed humps and the Thousand Oaks experience
Institute of Traffic Engineers Journal
(1983)
J.R. Jarvis et al.
The loading of pavements in the vicinity of road humps
Australian Road Research Board, Proceedings of the 11th Conference
(1982)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (34)

The influence of inferred traffic safety culture on traffic safety performance in U.S. States (1994–2014)
2022, Journal of Safety Research
Citation Excerpt :
The potential causal mechanism of other significant predictors was less intuitive: It is difficult to explain why a larger resident population may reduce the crash fatality rate unless we assume this represents the relationship between lower speeds in higher populated (urban) areas (Zaidel et al., 1992) and reduced severity of crash outcomes (Aarts & van Schagen, 2006). Regardless, the effect size of this predictor variable was negligible and may also reflect a statistical aberration.
Introduction: Traffic safety performance (crash fatalities per billion vehicle miles traveled) is influenced by many factors related to the physical and social environment. The traffic safety culture in the local environment can influence behaviors that influence the risk of a fatal crash. However, if traffic safety culture is defined as “shared beliefs,” it is not possible to directly observe the effect of culture on traffic safety performance. Method: This study replicated the method proposed by Page (2001) to infer the effect of traffic safety culture on traffic safety performance for U.S. states between 1994 and 2014. This method infers the influence of traffic safety culture from the error between actual and predicted performance based on observable variables that measure the physical and social environment as well as behavioral hazards. Results: The results suggest that a positive traffic safety culture can have a protective effect by producing a lower-than-expected fatality rate. Conversely, a negative traffic safety culture can have an exacerbating effect by producing a larger-than-expected fatality rate. Conclusion: The derived metric for estimating traffic safety culture had strong concurrent validity by correlating with the ranking of states based only on total crash fatality rate. Practical Implications: Consistent with Page (2001), the analysis also identified common risk factors across states including per capita alcohol consumption and unemployment rate.
An investigation into the effect of parabolic speed hump profiles on ride comfort and driving safety under variable vehicle speeds: A campus experience
2019, Sustainable Cities and Society
Citation Excerpt :
A speed hump is characterized by an elevated pavement surface, oriented transversely to the flow of traffic and having various profiles such as sinusoidal, circular, parabolic or flat-topped (Parkhill, Sooklall, & Bahar, 2007; Pau & Angius, 2001). Also known as "pavement undulations" and "sleeping policemen" (Huang & Cynecki, 2000), speed humps are placed to protect specific locations such as intersections or crosswalks, to keep a uniform and low speed in a residental street, to achieve a smooth transition to a lower speed zone and to serve as a pedestrian crosswalk (Zaidel, Hakkert, & Pistiner, 1992). Although ignorance of the effect of humps on the stability of vehicles impeded the early application of humps (Kjemtrup & Herrstedt, 1992), speed humps are currently one of the most effective and most popular traffic calming devices (i.e., 46% of all) in controlling the vehicle speeds on urban roads (Rahman, Takemoto, Sakamoto, & Kubota, 2005).
This study aims to investigate the effect of parabolic speed hump profiles on ride comfort and driving safety under variable vehicle speeds. To this end, in-situ and simulation tests were carried out in which root-mean-square values were evaluated. Field tests were performed on seven parabolic speed humps within the boundaries of Istanbul Technical University Ayazaga Campus Area. These tests were conducted twice with different loads. Five vehicle speeds were taken into account within the range of 15 km/h to 35 km/h with 5 km/h increments. As in-situ tests focused on the measurement of the vertical acceleration when crossing the speed humps, maximum vertical accelerations and root-mean-square values were recorded by means of an accelerometer and a software. Two sets of parabolic speed hump profiles were considered for the simulation stage and then the results of the field tests and the simulation tests were compared.
The results have yielded vehicle speed and parabolic speed hump height as the most important parameters affecting ride comfort and driving safety. It has also been demonstrated that the weight of the vehicle is negatively associated with motorists’ sense of discomfort and an increase in the length of speed humps results in slightly better ride comfort.
A fundamental experimental approach for optimal design of speed bumps
2018, Accident Analysis and Prevention
Citation Excerpt :
One study included the search for ways to solve those problems arising from the passing of public transportation and emergency vehicles over speed humps. This study of speed bumps located in several countries over the face of the globe demonstrated that if speed bumps are designed and executed correctly such problems as vehicle damage or driver’s loss of control can be effectively eliminated (Zaidel et al., 1992). According to the preliminary findings of a research study conducted in 2010, a significant increase in tail pipe emissions was noted after the speed hump was crossed.
Speed bumps and humps are utilized as means of calming traffic and controlling vehicular speed. Needless to say, bumps and humps of large dimensions in length and width force drivers to significantly reduce their driving speeds so as to avoid significant vehicle vertical acceleration. It is thus that this experimental study was conducted with the aim of determining a speed bump design that performs optimally when leading drivers to reduce the speed of their vehicles to safe levels. The first step of the investigation starts off by considering the following question: “What is the optimal design of a speed bump that will − at the same time − reduce the velocity of an incoming vehicle significantly and to a speed that resulting vertical acceleration does not jeopardize road safety? The experiment has been designed to study the dependent variables and collect data in order to propose an optimal design for a speed bump. To achieve this, a scaled model of 1:6 to real life was created to simulate the interaction between a car wheel and a speed bump. During the course of the experiment, a wheel was accelerated down an inclined plane onto a horizontal plane of motion where it was allowed to collide with a speed bump. The speed of the wheel and the vertical acceleration at the speed bump were captured by means of a Vernier Motion Detector.
A theoretical overview of road hump effects on traffic noise in improving residential well-being
2017, Transportation Research Procedia
Previous studies have stated that an urban residential area's living quality is threatened by noise annoyance, of which traffic noise is considered the main contributor. This paper aims to discuss if the speed-reducing benefits of existing road humps make them viable as a noise-reducing measure, particularly when the humps do not comply with existing guidelines. The methods used were a literature review and paired-sample T-tests to test the significance of changes in traffic noise at selected road humps. The literature and data showed that noise levels were still high at roads with road humps, due to the frequency of vehicle accelerations and decelerations near the road humps. The noise levels are also above the permissible noise level for Malaysian residential areas. This suggests that road humps are less viable especially when drivers change their speed of vehicles appreciably when approaching the road humps.
The history of road safety research: A quantitative approach
2014, Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour
Citation Excerpt :
A large variety of topics associated with speed are included in research articles in this keyword-set, such as speed as a road accident factor (e.g., Wilmot & Khanal, 1999), speed limits (e.g., Kunna, 1980), speed reduction measures (e.g., Zaidel, Hakkert, & Pistiner, 1992), and ISA (e.g., Carsten & Tate, 2005). Literature reviews on the topic of speed and road safety clearly illustrate the importance of speed in road safety research; it encompasses all types of research and includes driver-, vehicle- as well as road-related research (see, e.g., Aarts & van Schagen, 2006; Anon, 1938; Lamm et al., 1999; McCarthy, 2001; Zaidel et al., 1992). Fig. 6 shows that accident proneness is a recurring topic over the years.
In this paper we provide a global description in quantitative terms, of the developments in road safety research from the early 1900’s until 2010. To this end, electronic databases have been searched and papers matching search criteria were selected for analysis. Word and co-word frequencies of key-words in all the titles and abstracts of these publications were collected and analysed. In this study, we explored the possibility to identify historical trends in road safety research topics. Furthermore we explored whether the important paradigms concerning the history of road safety research as presented in the literature can be confirmed on quantitative grounds. It is concluded that the first results are promising: varying trends over time could be identified in the selected topics, which are generally in line with the different road safety paradigms. Finally, a number of limitations of the present study are listed, including the incompleteness of the currently used dataset.
The influence of speed bumps heights to the decrease of the vehicle speed - Belgrade experience
2013, Safety Science
Citation Excerpt :
The influence of the third type of vertical raising of the road pavement – speed bumps on speed reducing in Europe was analysed by Broadbent and Salmon (1991), who determined that 85th percentile of speed goes from 39.2 to 46.4 km/h, whereas Pau and Angius (2001), conducted a comparative speed analysis at 23 locations where speed bumps were installed and found that 85th percentile of speed was above speed limit (50 km/h). Still, the effectiveness of these measures and their acceptance by the community is frequently discussed in the scientific circles (Zaidel et al., 1992), and traffic calming obtained due to implementation of the vertical raising of the road pavement also has some harmful effects, which are specially reflected in the noise increasing (Rylander and Bjorkman, 2002; Kokowski and Makarewicz, 2006; Behzad et al., 2007), vibration increasing (Watts and Krylov, 2000; Lee and Kim, 2008) increasing of fuel consumption and harmful gases emission (Ahn and Rakha, 2009). Analysing the influence of speed humps at pedestrian crossings, Dixon et al. (1997), came to the conclusion that the installed speed humps increase the subjective risk and provoke the driver to slow down, what makes a pedestrian who is crossing the road safer.
In the inhabited zones where a large number of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users are expected, like school zones, it is necessary to decrease the speed to such a level that the risk of vulnerability is the lowest possible. One of the commonly accepted and often implemented speed decrease measures is vertical raising of the road pavement (speed bumps, speed humps, etc.). This work shows the influence of speed bumps of different heights (3, 5 and 7 cm) to the decrease of vehicle speed. Speed measurements had been done before speed bumps were installed, 1 day and 1 month after the installation. Applying ANOVA analysis and post hoc analysis, using Tukey–Kramer’s multiple comparison test, a comparison was made of mean, 50th percentile and 85th percentile speed, before and after speed bumps setting. It has been shown that there is a significant speed decrease on the places where speed bumps were set, compared to the period before setting. Based on the research results, it was suggested that on the locations where vulnerable road users are extremely endangered, speed bumps 5 and 7 cm high should be set, whereas at less endangered locations speed bumps 3 cm high could be set. Also, it has been shown that the effects of speed bumps on speed decrease are enduring, because there has not been any significant deviation in vehicle speeds neither 1 day nor 1 month after speed bumps setting.

View all citing articles on Scopus

View full text

The use of road humps for moderating speeds on Urban streets

Abstract

Transportation Research

Speed control humps—Further public road trials

Speed humps and the Thousand Oaks experience

Institute of Traffic Engineers Journal

The loading of pavements in the vicinity of road humps

Australian Road Research Board, Proceedings of the 11th Conference