VEHICLE SPEEDS ON MAIN ROADS 2001

Since 1961 the Finnish Road Administration (Finnra) has followed vehicle speed development on Finnish public roads. In the beginning the vehicle speeds were measured by radar. Since 1992 vehicle speeds have been automatically measured by traffic monitoring system (TMS). Classified vehicle speed information has been collected by the TMS into a vehicle databank founded in 2000. The vehicle speeds of 2001 has been calculated from the data of 600 million vehicles measured by the TMS. In the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, the average vehicle speed (measured in good conditions in summer) increased from 67 km/h to exceed 90 km/h in 1972. The introduction of speed limits in 1973 decreased the average speed level by 5 km/h. However, in 1975 vehicle speeds began to increase again, and the speed level of 1972 was reached in the end of 1980s. Since then, speed level has not changed much - the annual average vehicle speed has varied inside 1 km/h during the last ten years. In 2001, the annual average speed of all vehicles on main roads was 91.3 km/h. For cars and vans the average speed was 92.3 km/h, and for lorries 85.3 km/h and buses 87.6 km/h. The average vehicle speeds varied monthly a maximum of -8 to + 4% of the annual average speed of each road and speed limit class. Weekend traffic was 1.4 to 1.7% faster than average weekly traffic. Speeds reached a peak at night between 20.00h and 06.00h. Speeds were at their lowest in the morning between 06.00h and 09.00h and in the afternoon between 15.00h and 18.00h. The speed varied a maximum of 15 km/h 10-15% of all vehicles were speeding more than 10 km/h over the speed limits. During summer (1.5.-30.9.2001), on single carriageway main roads with a speed limit of 80 km/h, 15% of the cars and vans, 12% of the lorries and 17% of the buses were exceeding the speed limit by more than 10 km/h. On single carriageway main roads with a speed limit of 100 km/h, 12% of the cars and vans were speeding by more than 10 km/h. On motorways with a speed limit 100 km/h, 18% and with a speed limit 120 km/h, 9% of cars and vans were exceeding the speed limits by more than 10 km/h.