Investigating the effects of speed humps on vehicles and drivers/passengers

Speed humps in one of the most preferred methods for traffic calming. Therefore, it is important to investigate their application compliance with the current standards and the level of speed reduction that they aimed to provide as well as to investigate their effects on vehicles, drivers/passengers. In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the conformity of the applied speed humps with the current standards and the effects on the vehicles/passengers. Therefore, speed humps which have recently been widely applied in Bursa Uludağ University campus, Nilüfer/Bursa have been taken into consideration. These speed humps first been checked to determine the level of conformity with the turkey standard (TS 6283) and then their effects on passengers have been evaluated in terms of comfort. This study consists of three stages. The fırst stage of the study constitutes modeling the humps and vehicles by means of simulation technique. In this stage, the vibrations in terms of vertical accelerations for different types of vehicles with varying speeds are determined by the model. The comfort levels that drivers/passengers experience is also defined according to ISO 2631-1 standard. The second phase involves conducting a survey that aimed to determine the subjective comfort levels of the drivers/passengers according to passing over speeds of the vehicles observed in the field. In the last stage, the statistical measure of association between the theoretical comfort values that have been obtained by the simulation models with respect to passing over speeds on humps and the subjective comfort values derived from the survey has been investigated. According to the findings, the efficiency of the speed humps currently in use on the campus has been evaluated and suggestions have been developed accordingly.