Analysis Framework for Evaluation of Traffic Compliance Measures

Agencies and practitioners often test innovative strategies for improving driver compliance with traffic regulations. However, in evaluating these strategies, researchers often rely on simple before-and-after methods that suffer from several flaws and that can result in misleading results and an inaccurate assessment of a strategy's effectiveness. This paper examines these flaws, proposes a framework that avoids or corrects for them, and then uses it to analyze the effectiveness of a common strategy: installation of larger signage (at a freeway entrance ramp). The framework described in this paper can be applied to a wide range of driver compliance situations. Among them are yielding at pedestrian crossings, speed limit obedience, and proper anticipation of roadway features such as speed humps or intersections.