Resources

Creating a Speed Management Program

Speed management programs and plans provide a framework for how to create safe mobility for all road users in the context of specific road conditions and across a vast road network. It is a coordinated, repeatable approach for establishing target speeds, identifying risk, selecting and implementing measures, and evaluating results across a location, corridor, community, or transportation network. Effective programs bring together the people and organizations that shape transportation safety, including road owners and operators, planners, engineers, designers, consultants, public-health and emergency-response professionals, enforcement partners, researchers, elected leaders, advocates, and community members.

 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Uniform Guidelines for State Highway Safety Programs, Highway Safety Program Guideline No. 19 states “speed management involves a balanced program effort that includes: defining the relationship between speed, speeding, and safety; applying road design and engineering measures to obtain appropriate speeds; setting speed limits that are safe and reasonable, applying enforcement efforts and appropriate technology that effectively address speeders and deter speeding; marketing, communication, and educational messages that focus on high-risk drivers; and soliciting the cooperation, support, and leadership of traffic safety stakeholders.” The FHWA Speed Management Guidebook states that a speed management program is a strategy to address concerns of undesirable speeds at a specific location, along a corridor, or within a road network.

Managing Speed Infographic
Source: https://www.unroadsafetyweek.org/en/news/news-item/t/new-infographic-from-who-focuses-on-speed

 

Speed Management Attributes

Speed management programs and plans guide and implement speed management activities that should be pursued across multiple jurisdictions and/or departments responsible for speed and safety. At a minimum, departments and partners with the jurisdiction that handle policy, planning, engineering, enforcement, education, public health and maintenance should be involved in creating a speed management program and plan. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Speed Management Guidebook states that the program should be comprehensive and should address all factors that influence speeding: public awareness, user behavior, roadway design, surrounding land uses, traffic conditions, posted speed limits, and enforcement. Further, speed management programs should include the following attributes:

  • Proactive and systemic analysis of crash data, roadway data, and road user data
  • Applying road design, traffic operations, and safety measures
  • Setting appropriate, rational, desirable, and safe speed limits
  • Technology and targeted enforcement as supporting measures
  • Communication and public engagement
  • Cooperation of all traffic safety stakeholders, both public and private, including transportation, health, emergency-response, enforcement, research, private-sector, and community partners
  • Identify where speeds may be too high for multimodal transportation

Prioritizing Safe System Actions The Safe Systems Pyramid can help prioritize population-level, policy, land-use, and built-environment measures before interventions that rely mainly on individual behavior or compliance. For roadway projects, FHWA’s Safe System Roadway Design Hierarchy prioritizes removing severe conflicts, reducing vehicle speeds, managing conflicts in time, and then increasing attentiveness and awareness. Education, enforcement, and emergency response remain important supporting layers, and the system should support their success rather than rely on them to compensate for preventable risks.

  • Build a multidisciplinary working group to establish goals, roles, timelines, engagement methods, and measures of progress.
  • Identify speed and safety risk using crash and injury records, speed distributions, roadway and land-use characteristics, exposure, conflicts, operational conditions, and community knowledge.
  • Select measures proactively using the Safe Systems Pyramid and Safe System Roadway Design Hierarchy rather than waiting for a fatal or serious-injury crash.
  • Develop and implement an action plan that may include roadway and operational changes, revised speed limits, technology, policy changes, and supporting communication.
  • Evaluate and adjust using target-speed attainment, high-end speeds, conflicts, fatal and serious injuries, implementation coverage, and equity.

Creating a Speed Management Program

Featured Safe System Implementation Tool

NCHRP Research Report 1181, Tool 9: Implement Safe System Speed Management Program provides focused guidance for incorporating Safe System principles into the development and implementation of a speed management program. The tool can be used alongside the steps below to help move speed management from individual projects to a coordinated and sustained organizational practice.

The process for implementing a speed management program is described in several resources. With some variations, these resources outline the following elements of a successful speed management program:

  • Develop stakeholder working group to establish the goals of the program, determine timelines for action, set meeting schedules, communicate materials and methods to the public, and evaluate the program for changes. A working group comprised of stakeholders from public agencies, elected officials, and community partners will help foster a long-term commitment and build momentum for implementation.
  • Identify speeding related issues through data collection of crash records, crash types, fatality rates, citation history, road conditions, public information act requests, citizen concerns, public surveys, and speed studies. This activity also includes assessing if speeds are excessive and if speed limits are appropriate for the conditions through speed surveys.
  • Identify countermeasures that are effective in managing speeds and reducing the incidence and severity of speed-related crashes. Measures should be selected according to the roadway context, expected users and conflicts, available evidence, and their alignment with Safe System principles.
  • Develop an action plan for the program that can include a change in speed limits for designated roads and implementation of speed reduction projects where speeding is a problem. Public support, aided by the stakeholder group, is critical to implementing a successful action plan.
  • Evaluate the progress of the program through the evaluation of individual projects and overall program based on metrics set forth at the beginning of a program.

An outcome of a speed management program should be a plan of action which delineates specific activities to be pursued. In the World Health Organization’s Speed Management: A Road Safety Manual for Decision-Makers and Practitioners guidance is provided on how to design and implement a speed management system and specifically how to prepare a plan of action. The FHWA Safety Program’s Speed Management Action Plan Template, Problem Identification, Solutions, Implementation, Evaluation includes a template that can be used by state and local agencies in developing jurisdiction-specific speed management plans. Additionally, FHWA provides technical assistance to jurisdictions needing assistance in creating a speed management plan through the Roadway Safety Professional Capacity Building Technical Assistance program. Below are a few local, regional and state speed management action plans from North America that can be used as examples:

You can learn more about recent efforts to create speed management programs in the FHWA/ITE Noteworthy Speed Management Practices guide. It provides an avenue of information for practitioners, summarizing eight case studies that highlight noteworthy practices over a range of speed management issues.