There have been many reports of motorists using the lack of traffic on the roads during the Covid19 lockdown to flout the speed limits and now with more traffic back on the roads there is a danger that some may continue to drive at excessive speeds even after things are back to ‘normal’.
Behavioural Science in transportation (understanding the behaviour and motivations of transport users such as motorists and rail commuters etc) is a fascinating subject which plays a big part in the engineering and design of roads and their ‘furniture’ in an attempt to gently persuade drivers to modify their driving behaviour to something more appropriate.
There are many such psychological tactics in place to combat speeding but could we be doing more? What other engineering solutions could be implemented to stop excessive speeding? How do different countries tackle speeding on their roads? What could we learn from them?
My experience on M42, M25, etc, is that sensible variable speed limits at certain times, or traffic/accident conditions, helps the traffic flow.
Plus there's a huge amount of research evidence, modelling evidence, mathematical proof and the M3 to M40 section of the M25 that shows they are very effective at stopping bottlenecks...which was why they were introduced in the first place. Unfortunately fluid dynamics issues often don't make sense at first glance, it took a while for the reason they work to be explained to me in a way that made sense...
My experience on M42, M25, etc, is that sensible variable speed limits at certain times, or traffic/accident conditions, helps the traffic flow.
Plus there's a huge amount of research evidence, modelling evidence, mathematical proof and the M3 to M40 section of the M25 that shows they are very effective at stopping bottlenecks...which was why they were introduced in the first place. Unfortunately fluid dynamics issues often don't make sense at first glance, it took a while for the reason they work to be explained to me in a way that made sense...
