TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF SPEED KIDNEY, A NEW TRAFFIC CALMING DEVICE

摘要

Traffic calming has been widely applied to urban areas the last decades to moderate both speed and trafficvolume. Most used measures are physical which obligate the vehicle to modify its path and speed.Among the benefits of traffic calming highlights the safety improvement due to the speed reduction andtraffic volume reduction. However, traffic calming has disadvantages such as emergency response delays,traffic diversion, noise, vibrations, damage to vehicles and discomfort. In fact, common traffic calmingdevices do not consider discomfort on drivers who achieve an appropriate calmed and safe speed.Consequently, it was necessary to develop a new traffic calming device to moderate speed and tominimize the disadvantages of the previous devices. The Highway Engineering Research Group (HERG)of the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia has invented, designed and developed a new traffic calmingdevice named Speed Kidney.The present paper provides the objectives of the Speed Kidney, the description of the new trafficcalming device and its geometric design. Moreover, the technological development of the device isdescribed, as well as the main results from preliminary tests, a real implementation in a campus street anda controlled test track. Implementation criteria are also given.The Speed Kidney is another functional, feasible, sustainable and safety solution for trafficcalming.