Scribd
Upload
63 views2 pages

Setting Speed Limits - The 85 Percentile Speed

The 85th percentile speed is used as the standard for setting regulatory speed limits. It is defined as the speed at or below which 85% of vehicles travel under free-flowing conditions. Traffic engineers set the speed limit at the 85th percentile speed in order to minimize crashes and promote uniform traffic flow. The 85th percentile speed is determined by collecting speed data from a sample of vehicles using radar equipment and analyzing the data to identify the speed at which 85% of vehicles travel at or below. Setting the speed limit to the 85th percentile speed helps to increase safety and reduce collisions by achieving uniformity in vehicle speeds.

Uploaded by

murat karay
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
63 views2 pages

Setting Speed Limits - The 85 Percentile Speed

The 85th percentile speed is used as the standard for setting regulatory speed limits. It is defined as the speed at or below which 85% of vehicles travel under free-flowing conditions. Traffic engineers set the speed limit at the 85th percentile speed in order to minimize crashes and promote uniform traffic flow. The 85th percentile speed is determined by collecting speed data from a sample of vehicles using radar equipment and analyzing the data to identify the speed at which 85% of vehicles travel at or below. Setting the speed limit to the 85th percentile speed helps to increase safety and reduce collisions by achieving uniformity in vehicle speeds.

Uploaded by

murat karay
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

SETTING SPEED LIMITS – THE 85TH PERCENTILE SPEED

How are regulatory (posted) speed limits set?


The traffic engineering industry standard utilized in setting the regulatory speed limit for a street uses the “85th
percentile speed.” The City of Lincoln collects speed data utilizing radar equipment and analysis methods to
calculate the 85th percentile speed, mean speed, pace speed, and other street characteristics such as street
function, adjacent land use, and crash experience. The 85th percentile speed is a statistical measure that merits
more detailed explanation.

The 85th percentile speed is defined as, “the speed at or below which 85 percent of all vehicles are observed to
travel under free-flowing conditions past a monitored point.” Another way to consider this is the speed at which
only 15% of traffic violate on average. Traffic engineers use the 85th percentile speed as a standard to set the
speed limit at a safe speed, minimizing crashes and promoting uniform traffic flow along a corridor.

What influences the 85th percentile speed?


With the definition of 85th percentile speed, it would seem that the signed (posted) speed limit of a street would
be highly influential in determining the 85th percentile speed, however the exact opposite is the case. A deeper
dive into 85th percentile speed helps to reveal why it is a major consideration in determining a street’s posted
speed limit.

As described above, the 85th percentile speed defines the speed that 85 percent of drivers will drive at or below
under free-flowing conditions. Most people don’t drive according to the posted speed limit, but account for the
visual aspects of the street and a ‘feel’ for the street. The visual factors that influence speeds can include:

• Lane and shoulder configurations, widths, and presence of curbs

• Presence of vertical and horizontal curves

• Sight distance and obstructions

• Presence of surrounding developments to the street

• Access management characteristics and medians/turn lane configurations

The ‘feel’ for the street can be as simple as being the regular route that someone drives for years, the travel
through a busy commercial area, or driving a route with open access and block by block intersection spacing. With
so many factors impacting the speeds on a street, the 85th percentile speed becomes a good metric that can
quantify these variables and put them into one useful number.
How is the 85th percentile speed determined?
So how is the 85th percentile speed determined? By the completion of a spot speed study, data is gathered for a
sample size of vehicles. As an example, 100 free flowing vehicle speeds are collected over a two-hour period using
handheld radar. These speeds are then plotted and analyzed to create reporting statistics, evaluation metrics, and
graphical representations such as the following figure:

As illustrated in Figure 1 above, the 85th percentile speed of this segment is roughly 62 MPH (blue line). Using this
as the base point, the percent of vehicles traveling up to 5 MPH over and under this speed limit were also checked
(yellow lines). As the figure shows, only 23% of the total vehicles on the street were traveling less than 5 MPH
below the 85th percentile speed, while less than 2% of vehicles were traveling more than 5 MPH over the 85th
percentile speed limit. This means that roughly 75% of vehicles on the segment were traveling within 5 MPH of
the 85th Percentile Speed.

This is why the 85th percentile speed is such a large consideration when determining speed limits. If the speed
limit is set to the 85th percentile speed, we know that 85 percent of drivers will be driving at or below the speed
limit, and that a majority of vehicles will be driving within 5 MPH of the speed limit (75% in our example).

This uniformity of vehicle speeds increases safety and reduces the risks for vehicle collisions. When vehicles
deviate from a standard speed, either faster or slower, the potential for crashes increase, whether caused by a
slow car in a rear end collision or a fast car completing lane changes to maneuver through slower traffic. By setting
the speed limit to the 85th percentile speed this uniformity is achieved and safety is increased. Selection of the
most appropriate speed limit to post can be a challenging responsibility, but proper speed limitations will result
in safer and more efficient traffic flow. Setting realistic speed limits is important in inviting driver compliance,
allowing effective enforcement, and reducing crash incidence. In contrast, unrealistic limits fail to reflect behavior
habits of the majority of drivers, tend to breed disrespect for all traffic control devices, result in antagonism toward
enforcement efforts, and create a poor community image for visitors, in addition to increasing the potential for
crashes

2|Page

You might also like