Sub-arterial traffic management: a study of community attitudes using stated preference methods

Many sub-arterial roads in Sydney (Australia) are predominantly residential streets. In the last ten years there has been a build up of traffic using this category of road which would normally be associated with major arterial roads, and often with freeways. This traffic has reached such unacceptable levels in terms of exposure to the risk of accidents, especially for residents living on these sub-arterial roads, that a number of local Councils are considering extending the concept of local area traffic management (LATM) to sub-arterial roads. The idea of sub-arterial traffic management (SATM) presents a Council with a new challenge; not only is there a desire to improve the safety of the sub-arterial residential street, but this must not be achieved at the expense of filtering the current traffic into the local residential streets. The idea of SATM is to improve the safety of these sub-arterial roads by measures which lower the maximum speed along the road as well as reducing the variability in speed along the roads. Both dimensions of speed are known sources of exposure to accidents. This paper presents the findings from a survey of local residents prior to the introduction of SATM schemes. We outline the approach developed to study the community's preferences for alternative devices and schemes, which is the basis of determining the most preferred scheme from the community's perspective, given the objectives. This is followed by an outline of the survey procedure we adopted to collect the data required for establishing community preferences. We briefly discuss the sampling strategy, the sample design, the survey instrument and the data collection procedure. We then present the results of the investigation of community preference (or satisfaction) levels associated with alternative schemes in the context of achieving various levels of improved safety. We conclude the paper with comments on how a follow up monitoring study (the after study) can be used to provide external validation.