FURTHER STUDIES ON RUMBLE STRIPS AND ROAD HUMPS

FORTATTA FOERSOEK MED RUMBLE STRIPS OCH GUPP

Tests with rumble strips and road humps were carried out on a test track. Two rumble strips, two road-humps (one of these was made after watts recommendation) and one mobile road-hump (made by Skega ab) were tested. Discomfort was measured by referees who were passengers in different kinds of vehicles. They gave their scores of the discomfort on a sheet of paper directly after they had passed one construction at a certain speed. They were aware of neither the speed nor what construction they had just passed. In total seventeen persons were used split up into six vehicles. All constructions were passed at speeds of 20 to 90 km/h at 10 km intervals and in random order. The rumble strip tests show that rumble strips give a constant degree of discomfort at different speeds and that the level of the discomfort can be chosen so that most car drivers will notice it. The constructions were made on the basis of earlier experience and with the aim of giving increasing discomfort with increasing speed. This aim was not reached and the hypothesis is that rumble strips can not be designed to give an increasing discomfort with increasing speed, though the opposite can easily be reached. The skega mobile road-hump gives a great but acceptable discomfort which is clearly noticeable at all speeds. The discomfort, however, decreases rather than increases when the speed increases to more than 30 km/h. Both the road-humps turned out to have a good speed-adapting effect. In one of the cases the discomfort increases with speed up to approximately 65 km/h, and reaches a very uncomfortable level at 40 km/h. This road-hump is appropriate if desired speed is around 30 km/h. With the other road-hump the discomfort increases with speed over the whole of the test-range (20 to 90 km/h). The discomfort is acceptable up to approximately 45 km/h. This proves that a road hump can be shaped to help speed-adaption up to about 50 km/h. A passage at a higher speed is extremely annoying but causes no damage neither to the vehicle nor its passengers. (TRRL)

• Corporate Authors:

  Lund University of Technology, Sweden

  Institution for Traffic Engineering, Fack 725
  S-220 07 Lund 7,   Sweden 
• Authors:
  • GAARDER, P
  • HYDEN, C
• Publication Date: 1979

Language

• Swedish

Media Info

• Features: Figures; Tables;
• Pagination: 24 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Comfort; Evaluation and assessment; Rumble strips; Speed; Speed control humps; Speed limits; Test tracks; Traffic control devices; Vehicle design
• Uncontrolled Terms: Bumps
• ITRD Terms: 9138: Comfort; 9020: Evaluation (assessment); 551: Road stud; 2849: Rumble strip; 5408: Speed; 2789: Test track
• Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00316824
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI)
• Report/Paper Numbers: TVTT 7019 Monograph
• Files: ITRD, TRIS
• Created Date: Apr 15 2003 12:00AM