01625586

Component

The speed limits in Israel were updated twice in recent years: in January 2011 and again in January 2013. The updates were by 10 to 20 km/h in twenty-six segments in seven different highways, with total length of 148 km. This study explores the change in safety that resulted from this action. The authors use three different approaches: (1) a simple before-and-after approach (2) before-and-after study with a comparison group (3) before-and-after study with traffic flow correction, using the empirical Bayes method. All the methods showed decreases in the number of crashes after the speed limit change. Relative to one of the comparison groups the decreases were statistically significant, 18% (CI=[9%,28%]) by method (2) and 21% (CI=[12%,30%]) by method (3). This finding, which suggests an increase in safety, contradicts prior knowledge about the effect of raising the speed limit, an issue that may deserve additional exploration in additional studies.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB20 Standing Committee on Safety Data, Analysis and Evaluation.

01618707

17-03159

English

14p

2017

Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References (10) ; Tables

Crash causes; Freeways; Speed limits; Traffic flow

Israel

Highways; Safety and Human Factors

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2017 Paper #17-03159

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 8 2016 11:11AM