Potential benefits and costs of speed changes on rural roads.

This paper was previously published in: Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), Report CR 216, and for the abstract see ITRD E210279. The objective of the project was to explore the potential economic costs and benefits of changes to speed limits on rural roads in Australia. Net costs and benefits were estimated over a range of mean travel speeds for rural freeways, other divided roads and undivided roads. Within the limits of the assumptions made and the data available for this study, the following general conclusions were reached:1. Increasing the speed limit to 130 kilometres per hour for all vehicles on rural freeways would have substantial social costs; 2. Increasing the speed limit to 130 kilometres per hour on rural divided roads would have even greater social costs than the increased limit on freeways; 3. If the 'willingness to pay' valuations of crash costs reflecting consumer preferences are used, the optimum speeds on rural freeways would be 120 kilometres per hour for cars and light commercial vehicles and 95 kilometres per hour for trucks. On divided rural roads, the optimum speeds would be 110 kilometres per hour and 90 kilometres per hour, respectively, and 4. There is no economic justification for increasing the speed limit on two-lane undivided rural roads shoulders. (Author/publisher)