No Scientific paper- Ejercicio Tema 4

 

The importance of installing speed limit signal quite in advance of the traffic control cameras to prevent fines.

Javier Villafranca Zudaire

Doctoral student, UPNA, Ingeniería y arquitectura, Pamplona, Spain

Abstract

The are several speed cameras in Spain that fine cars by the thousands. The purpose of this paper is to recommend to advance the site of the speed limit signal in respect to the traffic control point. To do this a measurement of the speed 600 m before the control camera was done at several hours of the day. Afterwards the same measurement was performed but at 1,5 km before that point. Comparative results demonstrated that advancing the signal 1,5 km reduces the fines by more than 50 %.

Introduction

     In the province of Navarra (Spain) a radar located in highway A15 in the village of Lecumberri at Km 127,6, is among the top 10 speed cameras that issue the most fines in Spain. Although there are several speed limit signals before the traffic camera, in 2024 some 45.212 vehicles were fined at this point by this camera. That collected an impressive 2,2 million € that year in fines. The question is why that happens when 3 signals are placed in the 400 m before the control point? There have been several studies on similar subject in USA, Germany and Spain. After measuring the speed for several days at different hours, our conclusion is that the first speed limit signal should be located many more meters before the speed control point.

Methods

In the highway AP-15 at Lecumberri, the first signal with the speed limit (FSSL) is at 400 m before the official traffic camera (OTC) and signs 80 Km/h.

The method consists in measuring the velocity of vehicles in 2 scenarios:

1).- Placing the radar 200 m before the FSSL which means 600 m before the OTC. This was observation point 1.

2).- Placing the radar also 200 m before the FSSL but at 1,5 Km in advance of the OTC. This was observation point 2.

The measurement was performed during the months of March to May. Each day 6 hours of data were taken in the following 3 times intervals:

a).-  Period 1 : 2 hours in the morning (7:30-9:30)

b).- Period 2 : 2 hours in the evening ( 18-20)

c).- Period 3 : 2 hours in the night (1–3).

    To measure the speed of the cars a radar with reference I-S 500-3B of the

    Serie Cirano 500 from Indra was used.

Results

The average number of vehicles per period (as defined above) were:

Period 1: 2.020 cars /day

Period 2: 2.210 cars /day

Period 3: 535 cars /day

In the first scenario, it was observed in Periods 1 and 2 that if the vehicles had a speed > 130 Km/h in the observation point 1, then 76 % of these vehicles exceeded the limit of 80 Km/h in the OTC. When the speed was between 100 -130 Km/h, then 23 % of the vehicles were above the limit in OTC. And when the speed was < 100 Km/h the fined cars were 8,5 %. At the same time in Period 3 the result was that when the vehicle was > 100 Km/h in the observation point 1, then 5,1 % of the vehicles were over the speed limit.

With the agreement of the traffic authorities, the FSLS was placed now 1,5 km before the camera and we took measurements at observation point 2. The measurements were as follows: in Periods 1 and 2 if the vehicles speed was > 130 Km/h, then 24 % of the vehicles were over the speed limit in the OTC. When the speed was between 100 and 130 Km/h, then 9 % of the vehicles were fined. And finally, when the speed was < 100 Km/h the fined were 1,5 %. In Period 3 the result was that vehicles with a speed > 100 Km/h in the observation point, then 0,4 % of the vehicles were over 80 Km / h in the OTC.

 

Discussion

The observed results are in line with the observation of Mathew et al. (2020) in the Interstate Highway 90, USA, in the area of Worcerster where 300 m before the FSSL, a car speed > 40 Km/h above the limit caused fines to > 80 % of the vehicles with FSLS located 600 m before the OTC. Reichel et al. (2018) obtained also very similar results measuring speed limits of cars several hundred meters before the limit speed signal in the highway A2 , Germany, between Recklinghausen and Dortmund. However in a measurement of speed in AP2, Spain, between Caspe and Lleida, Vera et al (2019) measuring the speed 1 km away before the signal of speed limit, only 13 % of vehicles above 130 km/h were fined in the radar.

Conclusions

The results of the observations during 3 months indicates that exceeding the speed limit in 200 m before the FSSL and 600 m before the OTC by more than 20-40 Km/h will result in big percentage of the cars being fined because they did not react in time. On the other hand, installing the FSSL over 1,5 Km before the OTC, results in a more than 50% reduction of fines.

So that our recommendation is to establish the FSLS 1,5 Km before the traffic control cameras.

This recommendation should be tested by future investigations in several OTC in several places in Spain.

References

Mathew , J., I., Habert, G., 2020. Environmental influence by car speed. J. Clean. Prod. 142, 2881–2892. https://doi.org/10.2020/J.JCLEPRO.2020.10.190.

Reichel W.., Müller, F., Vierhaus M.., 2018. Limiting speed cars in Germany Clean. Prod. 154, 230–240. https://doi.org/10.1018/J. JCLEPRO.2018.04.002.

Vera D., Diaz, D.,  Fernandez, J., 2019. Economic and environmental potential reducing speed of cars. Sustainability 14, 4297. https://doi.org/11.2590/su13385193.

Note from the author:

This short article is a mere exercise of the course topic 4. It has not any value since all data and references are invented. The only purpose is learning how the structure of an article should be.