Investigating Car Users’ Driving Behaviour through Speed Analysis

Eboli, Laura; Guido, Giuseppe; Mazzulla, Gabriella; Pungillo, Giuseppe; Pungillo, Riccardo · 2017 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.7307/ptt.v29i2.2117

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Summary

This study investigates the classification of car users’ driving behavior based on instantaneous speed analysis, addressing the critical role of speed as a primary risk factor in road traffic accidents. Motivated by the high prevalence of human error in crashes and the limitations of self-reported driving behavior surveys, the authors aim to develop an objective methodology for categorizing driving styles using real-world kinematic data. The research seeks to identify specific driving behaviors—safe, unsafe, and safe but potentially dangerous—to inform targeted road safety interventions. The experimental design involved collecting speed data from 27 drivers traversing a 10-kilometer segment of the SS106 “Jonica” rural two-lane road in Southern Italy, a route known for high accident rates. Vehicles equipped with GPS-enabled smartphones recorded instantaneous speed and position data at a frequency of 1 Hertz. The road segment was divided into 22 geometric elements (tangents and curves), for which key metrics such as the 50th percentile speed (V50), average speed (Vm), 85th percentile operating speed (V85), design speed (Vd), and posted speed limit (VL) were calculated. Driver characteristics, including age, gender, and experience level, were also recorded to contextualize the findings. The authors proposed a classification framework based on two speed thresholds for each road element. The lowest threshold was defined as the minimum of V50 and Vm, while the highest threshold was the minimum of V85, Vd, and VL. Driving behavior was categorized into three types: “unsafe” if speed exceeded the highest threshold; “safe” if speed fell between the two thresholds; and “safe but potentially dangerous” if speed was below the lowest threshold. The latter category identifies drivers who, while not speeding, travel significantly slower than the traffic flow, potentially causing irritation and risky overtaking maneuvers by other drivers. The results revealed that only four out of the 27 drivers exhibited predominantly “safe” behavior across most road elements. The majority of drivers displayed mixed behaviors, with many falling into the “unsafe” category due to speeding, particularly on tangents. Notably, the study found that a significant portion of drivers, even those classified as generally safe, engaged in “safe but potentially dangerous” driving by traveling at very low speeds. This finding underscores that accident risk is not solely associated with high speeds but also with significant deviations from the mean traffic speed, whether above or below. The study concludes that this speed-based classification offers a practical tool for identifying risky driving patterns and highlights the need for interventions that address both speeding and excessively slow driving to enhance overall road safety.

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Topics

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• speed choice
• urban rural setting
• sex gender
• exposure measurement
• incidence prevalence
• cultural cross national

Information type

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• Empirical Findings: observational prevalence, crash risk outcomes
• Methodological Resource: dataset resource