Panel data speed limit model for first-class arterial highway

In view of the defects of setting speed limits at 85 percentile speeds and the logic relationship among reasonable speed limit and operating speed, road characteristic, the methods of panel data model was introduced to discover the quantitative relationship among speed limit and percentile speed, roadway characteristic, etc. The parameters were estimated by applying linear regression method for panel data. Then residual method was used to verify the effectiveness of established models. Because of the mean and standard deviation of small and large vehicles are different in statistic meaning, panel data speed limit models were established by small and large vehicles respectively. The results of this paper reveal that the main factors of setting speed limits for small vehicle are pedestrian intervention, terrain and slope, percentile speed, while the speed limits factors for large vehicle are terrain, slope, pedestrian intervention and density of access way. These conclusions make some sense for Chinese speed control strategy.