2009 International Conference on Measuring Technology and Mechatronics Automation

Analyzing the Speed Dispersion Influence on Traffic Safety

Fangqiang Lu

Xuewu Chen

School of Transportation
Southeast University
Nanjing, China
e-mail: lufangqiang@seu.edu.cn

School of Transportation
Southeast University
Nanjing, China
e-mail: chenxuewu@seu.edu.cn
This paper compares the speed dispersion characteristic
between Airport freeway in the east of China and A20
freeway in the Netherlands. Then, we analyze the three main
factors of speed dispersion influencing on traffic safety. In
the end, conclusions and further study are provided.

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to analyze the influence of

speed dispersion on traffic safety. The average speed difference
(ASD for short) of two neighboring vehicles was used to define
the speed dispersion. Based on the traffic data obtained from
Airport freeway in China and A20 freeway in the Netherlands,
we carried out a comparative study on speed dispersion
characteristics. We found that the speed dispersion of traffic
flow on Airport freeway were larger than that on A20 freeway.
The comparing results showed that A20 freeway was safer
than Airport freeway. Some possible reasons were provided in
this paper. This indicates that the ratio of large vehicle, traffic
flow and over-speed are the three main factors of speed
dispersion influence on traffic safety.

II.

DATE COLLECTION

The typical sections of the freeway:

Keywords- speed dispersion; average speed difference; traffic

safety; traffic conflict technology

I.

INTRODUCTION

Speed dispersion has been long recognized as a

contributing factor for freeway crashes. It influences the
possibility and the seriousness of the traffic accident. In fact,
the 1984 TRB report indirectly supported this point of view
by concluding that if the average speed of the traffic stream
could be increased without increasing the variance of the
speed, then the adverse effects on safety might be
comparatively small.
Published papers have indicated that the speed dispersion
and crash rate have a positive correlation (Fildes [1], Liu [2],
Buruga [3], Pei [4]).Prior theories and empirical validations
have established speed dispersion-safety relationships, such
as the difference of 85th percentile speed and 15th percentile
speed and the rate of casualty (Liu [2]), the speed dispersion
and accident rate per 100 million vehicle kilometers (Pei
[4]). To the authors knowledge, prior suggestions on
structural models, with its potential to provide an improved
understanding of the relationships between speed dispersion
and traffic accident, was short of the research about the
causes of speed dispersion influence on traffic safety, and
little information is available in literatures about the
distribution of the speed dispersion.
The attempt of this research is to investigate the
fundamental characteristics of speed dispersion and discuss
the three main factors (the ratio of large vehicle, traffic flow
and over-speed) of speed dispersion influencing on traffic
safety.

978-0-7695-3583-8/09 $25.00 2009 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/ICMTMA.2009.566

Figure 1. Schematic configuration of the chosen sections of freeways: (a)

Airport freeway in China; (b) A20 freeway in Netherlands.

Airport freeway in the east of China: this section is about

5 km, with 2 lanes in one direction. The speed limit on this
road is 120km/h. Traffic data utilized for the present study
were obtained by video-tapping, all the videos were tapped
during the morning rush hours (7:30 to 10: 30) of 4
weekdays for each detector. Not only does traffic demand for
arriving at the airport mainly utilize the airport freeway, but
also part of through traffic depends on this freeway.
A20 freeway in the Netherlands: this section is about 1.1
km, with 3 lanes in one direction. All the videos were tapped
during the day 22nd June 2005.
In order to ensure a broad range of speed dispersion, 1
minute was used as statistical interval for each lane. A
program was applied to calculate the arrival count, time
mean speed and ASD based on the event data of
AUTOSCOPE.

482

III.

20 km/h on Airport freeway lane0, account for 76.1%, and

most of the data points distribute from 9 km/h to 20km/h on
Airport freeway lane1, about 128 points that account for
71.1%.

COMPARATIVE STUDIES ON SPEED DISPERSION

CHARACTERISTICS

A. Definition of speed dispersion

In Wangs recent research (Wang [5]), a new definition
of speed dispersion was proposed: the average speed
difference of two neighboring vehicles (ASD for short). He
found that the description of average speed difference is
better than standard deviation when describing the
phenomena of speed dispersion according to the empirical
data from urban freeways. ASD can not only be used
generally in statistical analysis for sample, but also take
consideration of car-following behavior. Therefore, we used
it here to describe speed dispersion.
Suppose there are n vehicles passing the given point in a
specified time interval, the speed dispersion described by the
definition has the form:

ASD (km/h)

30
20

10
0
7:00

n 1

v v

Where
point.

i =1

B. Data analysis
To get the comparable data, 3 hours data is selected from
the obtained data on the Airport freeway and A20 freeway
respectively. The rush hour on Airport freeway is
7:30~8:30am, while it is 7:00~8:00am on A20 freeway. So
the data utilized in this study was as followed: (a)
7:30~10:30am, 6th July 2006 on Airport freeway; (b)
7:00~10:00am, 22nd June 2005 on A20 freeway. 1 minute
was used as statistical interval for each lane, so there are 180
data points on each lane.
Lane0
Lane1

A D S (k m /h )

30
20
10
T ime
8:00

8:30

9:00

9:30

8:30

9:00

9:30

10:00
T ime

C. Comparisons on traffic safety

We used traffic conflict technology to study the influence
of speed dispersion on traffic safety. The traffic conflict
approach assumes that crash probability is related to
potential for conflict among vehicles in the traffic stream
(more information about traffic conflict technology see
Hyden [6], Zhou [7]). This implies that the crash probability
for a driver (to be involved in a multiple-vehicle crash) is a
function of the deviation of the individual driver's speed
from the speed of other drivers, such as Hauer [8] suggested
that drivers with speeds much faster or slower than the
median traffic speed are likely to encounter more conflict.
We established speed dispersion-serious traffic conflict
relationships that based on traffic conflict technology and
empirical validations in the prior study. Figure 4 gives the
relationships curve between ASD and serious traffic conflict
(STC for short) on Airport freeway. The survey methods of
serious traffic conflicts see Luo [9]
In the case of this traffic state, the relationships between
ASD and STC are not a positive correlation, along with the
increasing of ASD; the amount of STC is rising, and then
falling. When the ASD ranged from 8km/h to 11km/h, the
amount of the STC reached the top (about 13). The reason of
rising phase is that speed is discrepant in the state of fluid
traffic, and there is fewer disturbances among vehicles,
therefore, the amount of STC are few. Then, the speed
dispersion is large with the difference increasing among
individual vehicles, and the traffic flow is unstable, so the
STC is increasing. The reason of fall phase is that when ASD
reaches 14km/h and higher, the space of individual vehicles
are always large, so the probability of STC is small, but there
exists the situation of large ASD and small space headway
(sometimes this situation is unsafe), therefore, the amount of
STC will not reduce to zero. While this result is not in
contradiction to the prior study, the amount of STC can only
represent for the crash probability, not reflect the crash
serious. The number of STC is small, when the ASD larger

vi is the speed of the ith vehicle passing the given

0
7:30

8:00

(1)

n 1

40

7:30

Figure 3. Speed dispersion characteristics of A20 freeway.

i +1

ASD =

Lane0
Lane2

40

10:00

10:30

Figure 2. Speed dispersion characteristics of Airport freeway.

As we can see from Figure 2and Figure 3, speed on

Airport freeway is more discrete than A20 freeway. Fig. 3
shows that most of the data points distribution range from
2km/h to 6km/h on A20 freeway, there are 75% points
(135points) in this range on lane0, 83.8% points (149points)
on lane2. While there are 137 points ranged from 8 km/h to

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lane1, while it is only 0.06% on A20 freeway lane0 and

15.12% on lane2. The ratio of large vehicle would increase
the degree of speed dispersion on freeways. Large vehicle is
inferior to small car in speed and smart, resulting in the
speed difference between large vehicle and small car, which
influence on speed dispersion. As discussed by Chen [10],
speed dispersion problem is worse in developing countries
because of huge demand for freight transportation.
Overloading is a common problem on highways. Heavily
loaded trucks could not reach the minimum speed of freeway
and caused other vehicles frequent lane change, which
consequently increased crash risks. He suggested that
managing speed gap between large and small vehicles be the
most crucial step in combating highway crash problem.
Besides, vehicle type is diversity in China: the performance
is different among large vehicles, small cars, homemade
vehicles and incoming cars, huge difference in vehicles
mechanic capabilities and driving behaviors prohibit the cars
and trucks to operate smoothly in harmony. Based on the
data obtained from the investigate section, small car is the
primary type in the Netherlands, ratio of large vehicle on
A20 freeway inner lane is less than 3%, and is only about
15% on outer lane. However, it is about 15% on Airport
freeway inner lane, and reaches 30% on outer lane.
The traffic flow under peak hour is larger on A20
freeway (2016 veh/h-lane0, 1320 veh/h-lane2) than on
Airport freeway (1516 veh/h-lane0, 1014 veh/h-lane1), speed
under peak hour is also larger on A20 freeway (76.78 km/hlane0, 76.03 km/h-lane2) than on Airport freeway (68.82
km/h-lane0, 68.14 km/h-lane1). However, the traffic state on
A20 freeway is steady, and degree of speed dispersion is
low, while the flow is low on Airport freeway, and the speed
dispersion is serious. In the state of fluid traffic, the drivers
have no restricted, the degree of speed dispersion is low.
Before the traffic flow reach to saturation, the disturbance is
serious among vehicles, and the speed dispersion rises with
the flow increasing. In the state of congested traffic, the
vehicle freedom is limited, and the speed dispersion begins
to fall.
The probability of traffic conflicts increases as the speed
difference of adjacent vehicles increasing, along with the
frequently acceleration, deceleration or change of lanes to
keep up with the front vehicle. Compared with Airport
freeway, the traffic flow on A20 freeway is more stable.
Under the situation of stable traffic flow with high density, it
is necessary to overtake several vehicles or even more than
ten to get to destination, which leads to many waving
movements and greatly increase the possibility of traffic
conflicts. So among the traffic with homogeneous speed, the
behavior of overtaking of one vehicle will cause the speed
dispersion to increase.

than 15km/h compared to ASD ranged from 9km/h to

11km/h, but the weight of crash severe is bigger when the
value of ASD is higher (need further study in the future
work).
14
12
10

8
6
4
2
0
4

10

12

14

16

18

20

22

24

26

28 >30

ASD(km/h)

Figure 4. The relationships curve between ASD and serious traffic

conflict on Airport freeway.

Here we classify safety level as 3 groups: a. both of the

possibility and the seriousness of the traffic accident is low;
b. the possibility of the traffic accident is high, while the
seriousness is medium; c. the seriousness is high, while the
possibility is medium. Based on the relationships between
ASD and STC, Table gives the detail information about
the classification.
TABLE I.

TABLE TYPE STYLES

Safety level

ASD (km/h)

<9

9~11

>11

As we can see from Table , there are noticeable

differences in traffic safety between Airport freeway and
A20 freeway. It is apparent that percentages of data in level a
of Airport freeway is less than A20 freeway. However,
percentages in level b and level c of Airport freeway are
much higher than A20 freeway. Therefore, A20 freeway in
Netherlands is safer than Airport freeway in China.
TABLE II.

Freeway
Airport
freeway
A20
freeway

NUMBER OF THE ASD DATA POINTS OF AIRPORT FREEWAY

AND A20 FREEWAY
Lane
lane0
lane1
lane0
lane2

IV.

Level a

Level b

Level c

27
(15%)
26
(14.5%)
176
(97.7%)
175
(97.2%)

26
(14.4%)
22
(12.2)
3
(1.7%)
2
(1.1%)

127
(70.6%)
132
(73.3%)
1
(0.6%)
3
(1.7%)

V.

CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER STUDY

This paper studies the comparisons of speed dispersion

characteristic between Airport freeway in the east of China
and A20 freeway in the Netherlands, and analyzes the
influence of Speed Dispersion on Traffic Safety. It is
concluded that A20 freeway is safer, based on the index of
speed dispersion (ASD). Some of the explanations are given

REASONS

One of the reasons is that ratio of large vehicle is higher

on Airport freeway than A20 freeway. The ratio of large
vehicle is 14.95% on Airport freeway-lane0 and 29.44% on

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above. It is suggested that effective traffic management is

necessary to reduce the speed dispersion. In this paper, we
just present the method of discussing the relationships
between ASD and STC to analyze the influence of speed
dispersion on Traffic Safety. We have not obtained the STC
data from A20 freeway in the Netherlands, besides the STC
is diverse in different traffic state. In order to make an indepth study, the STC characteristic in different freeway and
traffic state should be studied.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research has been carried out as a part of the SinoDutch cooperation on Intelligent Transport Systems, and
been supported by the project of 2008 Suzhou Technical
exclusive program-Railway
transportation program.
(No.ZXJ0804) This cooperation took place under the
Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Dutch
Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management
and the Ministry of Communications of the People's
Republic of China.
The comments and suggestions of Chen Xuewu and
Wang Hao are gratefully acknowledged.
REFERENCES

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