Safety effects of variable speed limits at rural intersections

The principal aims of this paper are to study car driver’s different behaviour and experiences, to study safety effects to and calculate socio-economic effects of variable speed limits when introducing variable speed limits at rural intersections. Variable speed limits were implemented at six rural intersections in Sweden to increase traffic safety and improve observance of speed limits. Evaluation shows very positive effects on car drivers’ speed behaviour and socio-economic benefits. Due to the expensive technical system with automatic detection the result from the socio-economic analysis however shows a negative benefit/cost ratio at many of the sites. A parallel study has therefore been carried out to find ways to reduce both investment and operating costs.