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Citation |
El Esawey M, Sengupta J, Babineau JE, Takyi E. J. Transp. Saf. Secur. 2022; 14(10): 1776-1797. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2022, Southeastern Transportation Center, and Beijing Jiaotong University, Publisher Informa - Taylor and Francis Group) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
unavailable |
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Abstract |
This study reports the safety benefits associated with the installation of Variable Speed Limit System (VSLS) on provincial highways in British Columbia (BC), Canada. A VSLS is an intelligent transportation system (ITS) that aims at increasing the safety level on highways by varying the speed limit according to downstream operational condition and/or weather conditions. The analysis made use of police-attended serious crashes (i.e. fatal + injury) that took place during winter seasons. Three winter seasons were available as a before-implementation period, and three winter seasons were available as an after-implementation period. The results of a simple-before-and-after showed overall reductions of 35.8% and 36.8% in winter serious collision (WSC) frequency and rate, respectively, were found for the evaluation corridors. An Empirical Bayes (EB) before-and-after safety evaluation was also carried out to ensure that the results are reliable. The EB analysis showed an overall reduction of 34.4% in WSC. An economic assessment of the system was undertaken and the results showed that the benefits of implementing a VSLS exceeded the system cost with an overall benefit-cost (B/C) ratio of 4.3 and a Net Present Value (NPV) of C$34.41 million. The results of this study may motivate stakeholders who are interested in pursuing similar systems for mitigating weather-related safety challenges. Language: en |
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Keywords |
benefit/cost analysis; Safety evaluation; Variable Speed Limit System |