Conducting a speed study

The Inner West council did a speed study for the InnerWest@40 project to see what happens when you change the speed limit of 50km/hr roads to 40km/hr. This project’s results were defined by observing near-misses and speeds provided by the NSW Open Data Hub and Compass IoT connected vehicle data.

The data showed 60% of cars travelled at 40km/hr which reflected existing traffic conditions.

Near-miss data from the data providers also correlated with existing crash data.

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The results found which areas in the local government area posed the biggest risk for drivers. Planners can now consider strategies and prioritise high priority areas. The speed reduction strategies could provide economic benefits such as:

• A reduction of road trauma
• Savings in crash cots
• Reduced emissions
• Promotion of active transport and
• An increase in existing amenity and place-making opportunities

These changes could result in a decrease of related injuries by 30% and save an estimated:

• $7,211,063 per year when50km/h streets are reduced to 40km/h
• $29,378,872 per year if the initiative were expanded to all 60km/h classified roads.