Author(s): Abdulla Alghafli, Effendi Mohamad
In 2018, Abu Dhabi Police announced that there would be no speed buffer in all roads and the Municipalities added the amount of the buffer (20 kph) to all posted speeds. The move seems to respond to the need to standardize road traffic policies with global practices. The research narrows on this speed buffer policy in an attempt to establish its possible effect on the safety at signalized intersections in Abu Dhabi. There were no changes in road characteristics, signal plan and signal timing during the study period except the posted speed limit before and after the removal of the speed buffers. This was done to find the impact of removing speed buffer on safety performance of signalized intersections. Overall, the policy change was attributed to increase an average speed which was suspected to have resulted in the increased average number of incidences and accidents at the intersections. Increased speeds affected the practical breaking distance and reaction time, and thus resulted into increased potential cases of conflicts at intersections. Empirical Bayes (EB) analysis was used to find the impact of removing speed buffer on safety performance of signalized intersections. In summary, the study noted increased traffic incidences with the removal of the speed buffers. The policy makers should therefore reconsider their decision.