SpeedNabber™ for School Zones

In school zones there is a need to calm traffic. The safety of the children and their parents are extremely important. Each year significant numbers of people are either injured or killed in school zone related accidents.

The Transportation Research Board of The National Academies in 2006 published a report on the Effectiveness of Speed-Monitoring Displays in Speed Reduction in School Zones. The report was authored by Choulki Lee (Graduate School of ITS, Ajou University, San 5, Wonchon-Dong, Youngtong-Gu, Suwon 442-749, South Korea), Sangsoo Lee and Youngtae Oh (School of Environmental Civil and Transportation Engineering, Ajou University, San 5, Wonchon-Dong, Youngtong-Gu, Suwon 442-749, South Korea) , Bongsoo Choi, (Division of Traffic Operation and Safety, City of Gwacheon, 72 Gwanmun-Ro, Gwacheon City, Gyeonggi-Province, South Korea). The following is an excerpt from the report.

Speeding is one of the major causes of the frequent and severe traffic accidents that occur in school zones. Two field studies were conducted to assess the short-term and long-term effectiveness of speed-monitoring displays (SMDs) for speed reduction in school zones. The performance difference is discussed according to several dependent variables, including the average speed, the 85th percentile speed, and the distribution of speeds. The short-term study results showed that the speed of vehicles began to be reduced when the driver recognized the presence of an SMD, and the average speed was reduced by about 17.5% (8.2 km/h) at the SMD location. This speed reduction was observed throughout the day, regardless of the time of day. A similar performance trend was identified from the long-term study results, but the average speed reduction was slightly reduced to 12.4% (5.8 km/h) at the SMD location. However, statistical analyses showed that the speed differences were statistically significant. In addition, analysis of the results of the speed distribution showed that the number of speeding vehicles was greatly reduced after the SMD was installed, and the 85th percentile speed also decreased from 54.3 to 46.3 and 45.0 km/h in the short-term and the long-term studies, respectively. Therefore, it was concluded that the application of SMDs in school zones produced a positive impact on the drivers’ behaviors for a long period of time.

The most basic version of SpeedNabber provides for highly accurate radar speed detection and speed display in a very portable package. The system is battery powered and can be easily relocated. In many cases this will provide for significant traffic calming. However in certain situations the addition of license plate capture provides significantly more incentive to the vehicle operator to reduce speed. Enforcement may take the form of a warning letter to the owner of the offending vehicle and eventually the issuance of one or more speed violation tickets to the offending vehicle.