Main themes
Mobility

Title
Reducing speeds for better mobility and quality of life

Focus
The lecture will address the issue of having more appropriate speeds in cities while increasing efficiency and livability.

Issues which the lecture addresses
Current transport policies give too much attention to speed as an indicator of performance, when the correct approach should be that of lowering speeds and increasing efficiency by means of sustainable transport. When comparing the history of speed and transport, many issues arise that demonstrate that the key to improving livability, mobility and efficiency lie in other issues such as better reliability, transport systems but not increasing speeds. The social, economic and environmental issues surrounding the topic are also explored.

Short analysis of the above issues
Speed is a “moving target” and its definition and number has changed across the years, especially during the twentieth century. Transport policy has neglected this evolution and has created a paradigm where speed is central as an indicator that should demonstrate performance, and thus became a goal of transportation policies around the world. The impacts of such an approach have been particularly negative in terms of extreme distances traveled by high-income residents and consequent urban sprawl and problems of road safety. A new approach related to lowering speeds and making appropriate measures to achieve this can generate considerable benefits.

Propositions for addressing the issue
The main measures to achieve more appropriate speeds are:
– Creating adequate infrastructure that is coherent with expected speeds
– Developing infrastructure according to target speeds
– Enforcing speed limits that are coherent with a more sustainable transport policy
– Promoting the use of modes that are sustainable and appropriate speeds of motorized traffic
– Redeveloping the methodologies that measure performance in transportation and redirecting them towards livability and other proxy measures of efficiency

Additional Reading Materials
OECD Transport Research Centre. (2006). Speed Management. Paris. Retrieved from http://www.internationaltransportforum.org/Pub/pdf/06Speed.pdf

Aj, M., Rwg, A., Mjb, F., Bh, L., & Cg, B. (1994). Vehicle Travel Speeds and The Incidence of Fatal Pedestrian Collisions. NHMRC Road Accident Research Unit, I, 98.

Global Road Safety Partnership. (2015). Speeding fact-sheet.

Tomlinson, J. (2007). The Culture of Speed: The coming of Inmediacy. (M. Featherstone & University Nottinghan Tren, Eds.) (1st Ed). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications.

Chen, C. F., & Chen, C. W. (2011). Speeding for fun? Exploring the speeding behavior of riders of heavy motorcycles using the theory of planned behavior and psychological flow theory. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 43(3), 983–990. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2010.11.025

Rosén, E., & Sander, U. (2009). Pedestrian fatality risk as a function of car impact speed. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 41(1), 536–542. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2010.04.003

Plowden, S., & Hillman, M. (1996). Speed control and transport policy.
Grundy, C., Steinbach, R., Edwards, P., Green, J., Armstrong, B., & Wilkinson, P. (2009). Effect of 20 mph traffic speed zones on road injuries in London, 1986-2006: controlled interrupted time series analysis. BMJ : British Medical Journal, 339, b4469. JOUR. http://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.b4469

Gehl, J. (2010). Cities for People. book, Island Press; 1 edition. Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Cities-People-Jan-Gehl/dp/159726573X