Abstract

Point-to-point speed enforcement is applied in Austria since 2003; and commonly called “Section Control”. Speed is determined by taking two pictures at different locations along a road, automatically recognising the number plates and calculating speed from the distance between the two cameras and the time elapsed between the two photo shots. Currently, there are about two dozen of Section Control devices in operation in Austria, half of them are stationary units. The mobile units are used at roadwork sections on highways. In 2012, a Section Control device was installed on a rural road for the first time. In order to determine criteria for further application, this device and four stationary units were included in a before-and-after-study about impacts of Section Control on road safety and its applicability on rural road. In addition, crash records of tunnels with and without speed enforcement by Section Control were compared as well as speed behaviour at roadwork sections on highways."br" The analysis used four parameters: Crash density, crash rate, rate of injuries and rate of crash costs. These numbers were calculated for the road sections concerned as well as for 5 kilometres ahead and after respectively, in order to capture potential displacement effects. Nearly all of these numbers were lower for the after than for the before period. The same applies for roadwork areas: Both, crash rate and injury rate were much lower with Section Control. A comparison of driving speeds at four different locations of roadwork areas showed lower values for average speed, 85-percentile speed as well as the share of offenders."br" It was found that none of the crash parameters allows for a sole assessment. Decisions about whether to install a Section Control or not have to consider all crash parameters in order to fulfil the legal requirement of a “particular local risk”. Such a holistic assessment also requires investigation of crash records, daily traffic and speed behaviour on the respective road section. Particular road sections like tunnels, bridges or roadwork areas justify use of Section Control even if the benefit-cost ratio is poor. The results of the study suggest that these recommendations apply to highways and rural roads equally.