CETB411 HIGHWAY & TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING LABORATORY

SEMESTER 2 2017/2018

Experiment No. : 3.2

Experiment Title : SPOT SPEED STUDIES

Section : 02
Group No. : 02
Lecturer’s Name : MR. Mohd Zakwan Bin Ramli

List of Group:
No. Name ID No.
1 Muhammad Hanafi Bin Ahmat Ritwan CE095274
2 Audrey Yeow Yee Keng CE098142
3 Wee Wei Joe CE095309
4 Haris Akmal Bin Mohd Yusoff CE098145
5 Ammenda Sarri Binti Ahmad CE098141

Rubrics PO9(b) (Experiment 1 – 12) [5 marks]:

No. Criteria Marks (0 – 5)
1 Appearance, formatting and grammar / spelling
2 Introduction and objective
3 Procedure
Subtotal (15 marks)
Total for PO9(b) (5 marks)

Rubrics PO4(b) (Experiment 1 – 12) [30 marks]:

No. Criteria Marks (0 – 10)
1 Analysis
2 Discussions
3 Conclusions
Total for PO4(b) (30 marks)

Technician Stamp (with date of submission):

Introduction

Spot speed studies are designed to measure speeds at specific locations under the traffic and

environmental. Conditions prevailing at the time of the study. Spot speed is the instantaneous

measure of speed at a specific location on a roadway. The applications of spot speed data are

for determining traffic operation and control, geometric design, accident analysis, and

highway capacity computation.

Objective

The objective of this study is to estimate the distribution and characteristic of traffic stream at

a specific location.

Apparatus

 Radar Gun

 Field data survey form

Procedures

1. A suitable site location with straight and level road section was chosen.

2. The speed sample data was taken by using radar gun.

3. The radar gun was pointed toward car’s bumper in order to get the reading of radar

gun.

4. The speed sample has been collected over a period of 1 hour.

Result and Analysis

Vehicle No. Registration Speed Vehicle No. Registration Speed

No. (km/h) No. (km/h)

1 5546 78 31 578 64

2 2467 73 32 2212 54

3 6589 78 33 6498 61

4 2458 66 34 1214 63

5 2145 58 35 4415 87

6 2455 63 36 74 67

7 9655 51 37 1517 71

8 6478 59 38 2854 58

9 5587 54 39 14 94

10 245 58 40 2858 66

11 5468 71 41 1458 74

12 6158 57 42 1879 56

13 4777 73 43 1218 91

14 5899 78 44 9785 52

15 665 55 45 5574 59

16 27 68 46 4885 62

17 2888 65 47 2658 55

18 1117 98 48 4871 91

19 8996 60 49 1593 58

20 5857 58 50 1822 54

21 4488 62 51 4822 69
 22 2548 86 52 9852 60

23 7565 68 53 6875 75

24 2858 52 54 477 77

25 557 53 55 4159 53

26 8895 58 56 2436 60

27 7741 71 57 4897 58

28 9563 58 58 9512 72

29 2248 62 59 2257 67

30 4774 86 60 22 56

Speed Frequency, f Cumulative Midpoint, x fx fx2

(km/h) Frequency

50-60 23 23 55 1265 69575

60-70 18 41 65 1170 76050

70-80 12 53 75 900 67500

80-90 3 56 85 255 21675

90-100 4 60 95 380 36100

 Frequency Histogram
25

20
Frequency

15

10

0
50-60 60-70 70-80 80-90 90-100
Speed range (km/h)

Frequency Distribution Graph

25

20
Frequency

15

10

0
55 65 75 85 95
Speed
 Cumulative Distribution Graph
70

60
Cumulative Frequency

50

40

30

20

10

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Upper boundary speed (km/h)
Calculation

Arithmetic mean speed:

∑fx 1265+1170+900+255+380
= = 66.17 km/h
∑f 23+18+12+3+4

Average speed:

𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑓 60 𝑣𝑒ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑠 3961

= = 66.02 km/h
𝑁𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑣𝑒ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑠 60

Modal speed:

The single value of speed that is most likely to occur is 58 km/h.

Standard deviation:

∑fx2 270900
𝜎 = √ ∑fx − 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 = √ − 66.17 = 1.44
3970

Percentile:

15th percentile speed: The cumulative frequency is 9, from graph, the speed of vehicle is 53

km/hr.

85th percentile speed: The cumulative frequency is 51, from graph, the speed of vehicle is 79

km/hr.
Discussion

1. For this experiment, radar gun was used instead of using old method that involved the

use of stopwatch and marked length. Radar gun is a hand-held device used to measure

the speed of moving object. It measure the speed of the objects at which it is pointed

by detecting a change in frequency of the returned radar signal caused by the Doppler

Effect.

2. There are a number of limitations to the use of radar speed gun. For instance, user

training and certification are required so that a radar operator can use the equipment

effectively. For our experiment, only simple briefing was given by the lab assistant.

Most of the time we were unable to detect the speed of the vehicles. It caused the

experiment to finish later from the planned time.

3. Moreover, radar speed guns do not differentiate between targets in traffic and proper

operator training is essential for accurate speed enforcement. This is the primary

reason for the operator being required to consistently and accurate visually estimate

target speed to within ±3 km/hr, so that, for example if there are 8 targets in the

radar’s field of view and the operator is able to visually estimate the speed of 7 those

targets as approximately 60 km/hr and visually estimate the speed of one of those

targets as approximately 88 km/hr and the radar unit is displaying a reading of 90

km/hr it becomes clear which target’s speed the unit is measuring.

4. The locality and environment in which experiment influence greatly the obtained

result. Using hand-held radar to scan traffic on a road will scare the drivers as they

might believe that we are policemen doing traffic operation. This will cause them to

slower the car to avoid being summoned. Nowadays, the presences of technology
 such as waze enable road users to detect speed camera on the road if any of the road

user reported it.

5. The 85th percentile speed is the speed that 85% of vehicles do not exceed which is 79

km/hr. In the other word, 85th percentile speed is a reasonable basis for the speed

limit. On the other hand, 15th percentile speed of this road is 53 km/hr which is the

speed that considered as unreasonably slow than usual.

6. The standard deviation of our experiment is 1.44 which can be considered as

relatively low. A low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be close

to the mean. It means that our experiment result has higher level of accuracy.

7. It can be seen obviously from the histogram that most of the road users driving in the

range of 50-60 km/hr. This result shows a positive attitude of Malaysian road drivers

obeying the nation’s law. The drivers driving exceeded speed limit of 79 km/h is less

than 10.
Conclusion

Spot speed study enable us to determine the speed limit of the road and the minimum

suitable speed. As the result heavily influenced by the effectiveness of using radar speed gun,

a proper way should be practised. During the experiment, students were not provided safety

vest to avoid being spotted by the road users. The chance for the driver to decrease their

driving speed is higher when they spotted our presence. All precaution steps were taken as no

accident involved students during the experiment.

The most likely speed for the road is 58 km/hr as it appears 7 times in our recorded

data. The experiment location which is two lane two way highways located in urban area. It

clearly explained why the vehicles traversed the road has recorded lowest speed of 51 km/hr.

The road is in good condition, less congested and less pothole. As the traffic light is far ahead

from the location of experiment location, the vehicles do not show any sign of slowing down.

Some vehicles even drove at 98 km/hr which is our highest recorded value.

Lastly, the time of experiment also play a major role in determining the speed of

vehicles. We conducted the experiment on Tuesday, 2 to 4 in the afternoon. It is not

considered as peak hour where people most likely using the road. That explained why the

flow is smooth and not congested.

Appendix

Using the radar gun

Radar Gun
Speed sample data