INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF VEHICLE TYPE IN THE EFFECTIVENESS OF VERTICAL TRAFFIC CALMING DEVICES: A MATHEMATICAL MODEL APPROACH

Following the fostering of sustainable mobility policies in urban areas, accidents involving vulnerable road users have increased recently, prompting more detailed analyses of effective countermeasures. Solutions based on traffic calming may represent a valuable answer to this problem. However, the inner principles governing their performance have not been sufficiently studied. This work focuses on vertical traffic calming devices, with the aim of developing a new performance-based modeling framework to ensure proper and refined speed control by vehicles near the device, ensuring the safe passage of pedestrians. A key design variable is the vehicle fleet traveling on the road where the traffic calming device is installed. This aspect was investigated by analyzing vertical dynamic interaction by means of a mathematical model carried out for different vehicle types, highlighting similar vertical acceleration (RMS) experienced by different vehicles when passing at different speeds over a defined raised pedestrian crossing. The model was calibrated through speed profiles extracted from video-based measurements. Future developments will involve implementing a driving simulator scenario to generalize and further validate the current findings.