01763440

Component

https://annualmeeting.myt...nlineProgram/Details/15753

The impacts of speed limit increases on the Interstate Highway System (IHS) have been studied and researched many times over the course of the last 50 years in the United States. These research efforts began after the implementation of the National Maximum Speed Law (NMSL), which reduced all speed limits to a maximum of 55-mph. In the following years, this restriction was relaxed to 65-mph with the Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act (STURAA) and ultimately was later repealed by the National Highway System Designation Act (NHSDA). Since the repeal, states have reacted in diverse ways with some relaxing rural interstate limits to historic high speeds and others maintaining limits of 60-mph or 65-mph. Despite trends of speed limit relaxation, future technological innovations such as vehicle connectivity and automation, vehicle energy source, and variable speed limits will pose many safety questions and potentially affect how these speed limits are set. In order to provide greater context, this paper seeks to present a proper summation of the legal and analytical aspects of rural interstate speed limit history in the United States and to consider what will affect these limits in the future.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ACP55 Standing Committee on Traffic Control Devices.

TRBAM-21-01686

English

15p

2021

Transportation Research Board 100th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; Maps; References

Forecasting; History; Interstate highways; Legislation; Rural highways; Speed limits

United States

Highways; History; Law; Operations and Traffic Management

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2021 Paper #TRBAM-21-01686

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 23 2020 10:59AM