Operational Improvements Award: To Minnesota Department of Transportation for Speed Management Program
The Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Department of Public Safety launched an extensive speed management project involving engineering, enforcement and education. Developed within the framework of the Minnesota Comprehensive Highway Safety Plan, this program was a traffic engineering project that included speed limit studies and corresponding adjustments, increased speed enforcement based on crash and speed data, and education in an effort to reduce fatalities and life-changing crashes on Minnesota highways. The project also included an evaluation of the effectiveness of this comprehensive approach.
This evaluation showed that the program resulted in a decrease in the number of drivers who traveled at excessive speeds. In particular, there were large decreases in the number of drivers traveling at least 10 MPH above the speed limit. These decreases ranged from 11% in the Twin Cities Metro area to 30% in Greater Minnesota. The evaluation also reported reductions in the numbers of fatal and life-changing injury crashes. A complete copy of the report can be found at www.cts.umn.edu/publications/researchreports under the title “Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Minnesota Speed Management Program”.
For more information, contact:
Sue Groth
Minnesota Department of Transportation
Telephone: 651-234-7010
Email: sue.groth@dot.state.mn.usor
Lt. Mark Peterson
Minnesota State Patrol
Telephone: 651-201-7114
Email: mark.peterson@state.mn.us
Rev. 10/30/07