The speed at which vehicles travel is increasingly perceived as the origin of various health (notably road safety) problems, as well as environmental and social problems. At the same time, speed is very often presented inthe industrialized countries as positive, essential to success in commerce and also to personal satisfaction, particularly for drivers. In fact, the influence of speed appears in several domains: road safety, atmospheric pollution and traffic noise, non-renewable energy consumption, transportation system efficiency, and more generally economy. Speed may also have an influence on urbanism and urban sprawl. A Working Group on Speed Management has been launched under the aegis of the Joint Transport Research Centre(JTRC). This Centre is a common centre of the ECMT (European Conference of Ministers of Transport) and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). The Working Group (which comprises representatives from 17 countries) began its work in April 2004 and the report was published at the end of 2006 (English version) and February 2007 (French version). This paper summarises the main aspects of the report. It also shows how intelligent transport systems could open new avenues in this field, notably for improving road safety. For the covering abstract see ITRD E139491.
Samenvatting