Realtime Speed Limit Map on Road Works to Improve Safety.

French motorways companies with the cooperation of ASFA have begun to work since the beginning of year 2006 on a new project about on board information on road works speed limits. The goal is to alert the driver through the navigation system about the current speed limit when passing nearby a road work. This project described in this short abstract is more than a simple case study as it claims to become operational in a medium term. The motorways companies are currently setting up a process to collect all speed limits on their network. In particular, two companies: ASF and ATMB have begun to create an automatic process to collect all dynamic speed limits induced by road works on their network. Autoroutes-Trafic is the operationalplatform that puts together all the data and provides these speed limits to partners. The complete deployment (up to the drivers) of the project iscurrently being studied. Road works speed limits will be transmitted in real time through RDS TMC to navigation systems. RDS TMC protocol, already in use to transmit traffic messages in real time, is based on radio technology to carry information. Navigation systems will then be able to warn the driver in advance before a road work to help him adapt his vehicle speed. For motorways companies, this technical innovation is an opportunity to supply a new service to drivers to the benefit of an improved safety and abetter mobility nearby road works. On motorways, the average speed of motorists has dropped by 5 to 6% in three years and the number of fatalities has been cut by 35%, including two-thirds which are directly due to reduced speed. A unique data base is gathering permanent and temporary speed limits with the Autoroutes-Trafic economic interest group in charge of centralising data. Motorway companies have three aims in collecting static speedlimits: to produce a map available via the internet enabling the display of all speed limits to road users; to work with route providers (Mappy, ViaMichelin, etc), in order to display sections with speed limits below 130 km/h (like static speed checks presently); and to transmit these speed limits to drivers in their vehicles.A first large-scale test enabled successful checking of this innovatory project's feasibility in June 2006. For thecovering abstract see ITRD E139491.