Speed Limits

Overview

The Speed Limits module is used to assign speed limits to sections of the road network, either as stretches of the road network or by zone. Speed limits define the maximum speed at which vehicles are legally permitted to travel on specified public roads.

Stretches

  • Layers:

    • Latest Speed Limits: combines all speed limits, calculating the latest speed limit for a stretch of road based using dates of when the limit came into effect and if it expired

    • Speed Limit Surveys: shows each of the individual speed limit surveys created by users

  • Speed Limit surveys are added via the New Speed Limits form.

Zones

There is also the Speed Limits Mobile App.

Speed Limit Status

Speed limits are categorised using the following statuses:

  • National Default - the automatic national default speed limit assigned to each road class

  • Byelaws - the maximum speed at which vehicles are legally permitted to travel on specified public roads

  • Periodic (Byelaw) - establish the maximum speed at which vehicles are legally permitted to travel on specified public roads at a particular time of day

  • Variable (Byelaw) - establish the maximum speed at which vehicles are legally permitted to travel on specified public roads at a particular time of day.

  • Roadworks - speed limits assigned to roads where road maintenance is occurring. Roadworks Speed Limits require both a start and end date to be entered.

  • Cautionary - cautionary speed limits may be used to advise motorists of the maximum speed at which they are advised to travel at, due to the temporary nature of the road surface during and following roadworks. These limits are not enforceable under the Road traffic Act and are in the range of the odd numbers; 25, 35, 45, 55, 65 or 75 km/hr

  • Proposed - establish the proposal of a maximum speed at which vehicles are legally permitted to travel on specified public roads.

National Defaults

The National Defaults are calculated as follows:

  • Any road segment designated as a motorway will be set to 120 Km/h

  • All National roads will be designated as 100 Km/h

  • All Regional roads will be designated as 80 Km/h

  • All Local roads will be designated as 80 Km/h

In 2015 an additional set of urban area defaults were imported. See the Urban Speed Zone Imports page for details.

Default Speed Limit Surveys

Each Local Authority has a set of surveys:

  • “DEFAULT SPEED LIMITS FOR Motorways”

  • “DEFAULT SPEED LIMITS FOR Local”

  • “DEFAULT SPEED LIMITS FOR Regional”

  • “DEFAULT SPEED LIMITS FOR National”

These surveys are locked, which means they cannot be edited. Due to the large amounts of data in these surveys (each survey covers a large percentage of the road network) when they are opened in the Speed Limits form the roads belonging to the survey are not displayed.

The default surveys are used to create default speed limits for the road network based on the road class, that are then used when calculating the Latest Speed Limits layer. These surveys have a Date Commenced value set to 1900-01-01. Any bye-laws created after this date will therefore take precedence in the Latest Speed Limits layer.

Note

No geometries are displayed for National Default speed limit records as these cover the whole road network. This is to avoid performance issues in the browser, and prevent hiding individual surveys. These surveys have a padlock icon in the top-right indicating they cannot be edited.