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There are a number of traffic calming measures that can be employed to protect vulnerable road users (VRU). Traffic calming is of critical importance in small towns and villages crossed by regional roads where it is necessary to resolve a number of conflicting traffic-related interests on stretch of a road that is just 500 m to 1,200 m long. Pedestrian refuges are one of the most common measures used to protect vulnerable road users. Considering the statutory speed limit of 50 km/h applying in daytime to all roads in built-up areas in Poland the authors chose a number of villages crossed by regional roads for speed surveys at locations upstream and downstream of recently installed pedestrian refuges. The surveys were conducted on a dry weekday in free and stable traffic flow on dry pavement surface. In the majority of cases the values of speed parameters, i.e. the 85th percentile speed v85, and average free-flow and stable-flow speeds exceeded the speed limit in built-up areas in Poland. The pedestrian refuges chosen for the study varied in terms of the platform width, taper length (P-21 and P-7b hatched pavement markings) and, last but foremost, siting along the road stretch. One of the pedestrian refuges under scrutiny had a form of a 2.5 m wide island situated on one side of the road centreline, while another one had a non-typical design, imposing nonsymmetrical deflections of the lane by 1 m in one direction and by 3 m in the other. In this case the size of the taper (the hatched markings area) was different in each traffic lane. The pedestrian refuges were sited in different sections of the stretch of the regional route crossing the village, i.e. in the entry zone, at the end of entry zone and beginning of the village centre area, in the village centre area and in the exit zone. The analysis of the survey data demonstrated that the pedestrian refuge width and the resulting lateral shift of the road lane had little effect on the vehicular speed and on the reduction of speed along the pedestrian refuges. The speed survey results indicated also that pedestrian refuges had no significant effect on the reduction of the speed of vehicles travelling in their immediate vicinity. Lower speeds before pedestrian refuges were recorded in sites with residential buildings visible in the immediate vicinity of the pedestrian refuge with the greatest speed reductions noted for vehicles passing the pedestrian refuge sited at the village entry/ central zone boundary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic calming measures are implemented increasingly frequently to improve safety of traffic in urban areas. Speed is one of the parameters having a bearing on the safety of traffic and, as such, it is important to assess the effect of the design measures on the operating speeds of vehicles. This paper investigates the efficiency of traffic safety measures implemented in city centre areas. The research site was a street where alterations of vehicular and pedestrian traffic management and parking arrangements had been implemented in a recently completed project. The street starts and ends with traffic light controlled junctions and there is one simple junction half way in between. With this layout it was possible to section off two test sections. On both sections vehicle speed surveys were conducted over one-hour time spans. Both average and 85th percentile speeds were estimated on either section. The surveys were carried out on a dry day under dry pavement surface conditions. The speed data from the surveys were subjected to a statistical analysis. The statistical inference part of the research included independence and median tests and significance and goodness-of-fit tests were also carried out. The results of the statistical analysis demonstrate a significant impact of the implemented street design on the speed of vehicles. The final conclusions state that on the analysed street section the implemented traffic management arrangements have resulted in a significant reduction of vehicle speeds. A considerable slowing of vehicle speeds following the completion of the street upgrading project was also confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zones 30 have been used for years in suburban districts as common traffic calming devices. The solution of zone 30 was used in a street in Szczecin. The street connects the area of detached houses with large panel housing estates. To reduce speed to 30 km/h, four successive raised areas were made of paving stone cubes as well as a 1 m wide median strip in the road axis. The change of asphalt blanket into paving stone cubes is thought to change the acoustic climate, due to differences of noise levels generated by traffic. The differences depend on a number of factors, including traffic volume, actual speeds and development of green areas in the neighbourhood of the street. The section of the street where a zone 30 was introduced is 800 m long. Traffic calming devices, including four raised areas posing vertical obstacles for motorists, were introduced along the length of the street at four crucial intersections with local and internal roads, leading to private premises, and public slip roads, leading to terraced houses. The raised areas were made of granite pavers and the sections in-between were covered with WMA (Warm Mix Asphalt). To confirm the hypothesis of increased levels of traffic noise at the interface of two surface types, the authors made several measurements of noise in the vicinity of the raised areas. The paper presents results of traffic noise distribution at the street with successive raised areas made of paving stone cubes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental compensation aimed at keeping bat flight paths open is a major environmental protection issue. The small mammals play a very important role in eliminating pests and insects, pollination and seed dispersal. New roads often sever the continuity of bat migration routes. Not only do bats have traditional migration routes, but also their winter habitats rarely change. Given the above, many countries use different solutions of sustainable civil engineering, geared towards maintaining free passage for bats over currently constructed or rebuilt traffic routes. New gantry structures over S3, a new expressway in Puszcza Bukowa (Beech Woods) near Szczecin. A total of three gantries were built over S3, two at the end of forest edge and one along a forest clearing on both sides of the road. All the three objects were located precisely on bat migration routes, confirmed by several years of monitoring. Monitoring studies were conducted again after the road had been completed and commissioned to confirm the effectiveness of the solutions. The paper hypothesises on the reasons for better or worse performance of the three gantries on bat migration routes to their winter habitats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A quick development of motoring poses, particularly in cities, a number of transportation challenges involving traffic flow and maintaining its safety. To ensure road safety in streets facing transportation challenges, different systems of traffic calming have been successively introduced aiming at improvement of living and safety conditions. Suburban districts and housing estates are having their traffic arrangement plans changed. Traffic calming zones (e.g. Woonerven, stille veje, zones 30, home zones) are introduced to control throughways, local and internal roads, different systems of traffic arrangements at intersections, trying to find the best solutions of increasing problems. Raised areas are commonly used in zone 30 as traffic calming devices. The solution was used several years ago at Łukasińskiego Street in Szczecin. It is a suburban street that connects two areas of detached and terraced houses. The street is characterized with many junctions with local streets of low traffic volumes, many public driveways leading to supermarkets, and gated communities of terraced and detached houses. Speeds reached by motorists before its reconstruction were often approximately 60-70 km/h, which inevitably posed fundamental problems with maintaining safety of pedestrians and joining the traffic out of side streets. For these reasons, the local authorities decided to introduce zone 30 in the street and to build four sections of raised road surface, made of paving stone cubes. The authors conducted speed measurements of free movement of traffic at Łukasińskiego Street to demonstrate whether the applied raised areas had an effect of speed reduction. The present paper evaluates the effectiveness of the four successive raised areas in terms of real traffic calming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wildlife crossings are structures that allow animals to cross human-made barriers safely. Wildlife overpasses are the reverse of most conventional bridges in terms of structural engineering, and this has implications for how they are designed. The Environmental Protection concerns mainly the fauna, because the development of communication and the construction of new transport routes has been increasingly fragmenting the natural environment. To fix the errors, arising from the fragmentation of the natural environment, upper or lower crossings are built for animals. The upper crossings are very expensive because of their dimensions. The construction of the upper crossings does not always turn out to be functional, as badly developed surfaces are not attractive to animals, which do not use them. The proper management of the upper crossings area is a very difficult issue, still quite experimental. In the literature, no functional solutions can be found in this regard. The only guidelines for designers may be the examples of the area development of the existing crossings, whose functionality was confirmed by the data from monitoring. However, ready solutions from other roads and natural conditions are not always useful, because in most cases the crossings should be tailored to the wildlife which use them. The paper presents results of map noise, confirming the impact of the development, depending on its type, on the "achieved status of soundproofness" on the access to the crossings and their surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]