Use of Traffic Calming Devices along Major Roads thru Small Rural Communities in Italy

The purpose of the project was to evaluate traffic-calming treatments on major roads through small Italian communities using either single-measure, low-cost or gateway treatments. For this portion of the project, gateway traffic-calming treatments were evaluated in Giffoni Sei Casali, Salerno. The main street through many small rural Italian communities is a state or local highway with high speeds outside the city limits and a reduced speed section through the rural community. Consequently, drivers passing through the community often enter at high speeds and then maintain those speeds throughout. When speeds in rural communities are problematic, traffic calming provides a potential solution. However, trafficcalming measures are generally used in larger urban areas; their effectiveness in small communities is unknown. Speeds decreased at all of the data-collection locations and decreases remained constant over the data collection period. Many rural communities do not have the resources to implement high-cost, elaborate traffic-calming measures. The measures used in Giffoni Sei Casali were low cost and simply involved painting the roadway and new signs. The traffic-calming treatments in Giffoni Sei Casali, Salerno could easily be implemented in other rural communities. Keywords: