Geographic determinants of vehicular speeding in British cities

Geographic determinants of vehicular speeding in British cities | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Geographic determinants of vehicular speeding in British cities Long Chen, Ed Manley This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8000426/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 11 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Vehicular speeding remains a major challenge in urban and transportation planning. Its prevalence in cities arises from a complex mix of social and spatial factors, and a suite of countermeasures are now built into road infrastructure to mitigate its impact. Yet our understanding of how urban context influences speeding is less clear, and we have little sense of the spatial scale at which urban form shapes speeding behaviour. In this paper we undertake a large-scale, comprehensive analysis of speeding behaviour across 13 British cities, using vehicle trajectory data from 3.2 million journeys. Unlike prior studies, we assess determinants of speeding across multiple scales - from local engineering interventions to regional measures of road network configuration. The results indicate that road geometry and network connectivity have a strong causal relationship with speeding behaviours, higher in general than engineering interventions. These findings have two clear implications for cities and urban science. First, changes to urban planning, including those to reduce speeds, should consider the impact of configurational changes in addition to local interventions. Second, more broadly, measures of local spatial behaviour should account for wider contextual urban indicators, reflecting the nature of human spatial perception. Humanities/Complex networks Social science/Complex networks Physical sciences/Engineering Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences Scientific community and society/Geography Social science/Geography Speeding behaviour network theory urban mobility urban planning spatial behaviour Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files suppmaterials.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 15 Dec, 2025 Reviews received at journal 15 Dec, 2025 Reviews received at journal 08 Dec, 2025 Reviews received at journal 03 Dec, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 10 Nov, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 10 Nov, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 10 Nov, 2025 Reviewers invited by journal 10 Nov, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 10 Nov, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 09 Nov, 2025 First submitted to journal 31 Oct, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8000426","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":543801929,"identity":"7aa1cdd2-e742-4b0a-bec6-391dc8ab78d1","order_by":0,"name":"Long Chen","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Leeds","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Long","middleName":"","lastName":"Chen","suffix":""},{"id":543801930,"identity":"4d9e9707-3df2-4aab-95b7-369be3788c42","order_by":1,"name":"Ed Manley","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA+UlEQVRIie2RsYrCQBBAx1uIzcheuYLcN2xvsb+y4UCbTW9hkSo2crWFH+EnJAykygekuCJyYGWRSq45ceKlTWIpuI9lWGb3sTM7AB7Pc2KbMAMQWcqhTabDCgIE9mEFWgX1Y4oEqN7K9TdK5eq0Xs0NjKkSWHQr0xiscPkJp7vokO2KZRjjQgssuxUuhpWAUJfRgSYJcWcOBNbdirkrV0JTuor+rmRAnvsVzT8mooRfUQ5oFPNSzSs9hSkCS9EXoSpOOtvmyzBRvNn3tC832/DHXehDbj6P1e96bqTkzTnvVriGZoLMu/1PBDA4yHF7LgfueTwez+tyA9+zU6qYlzlrAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"","institution":"University of Leeds","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Ed","middleName":"","lastName":"Manley","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-10-31 16:53:11","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8000426/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8000426/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":96236757,"identity":"e944f271-b58d-4b3f-95e0-3c068555a8f6","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-11-19 06:16:36","extension":"json","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":4395,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"73c78dc7db32401083d5f661b29655c9.json","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8000426/v1/42c333352ca00d6b11f3e493.json"},{"id":96253230,"identity":"dea61ac0-1db7-4925-b531-033b954a9144","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-11-19 07:42:11","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":2740403,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript2.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8000426/v1_covered_a1c53c0d-0193-4388-8b00-f4a6dcd19454.pdf"},{"id":96236758,"identity":"e56cd817-8b6c-4e9f-a98b-449e405a1b5a","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-11-19 06:16:38","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":41662677,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"suppmaterials.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8000426/v1/7919a86714146419193b81bc.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Geographic determinants of vehicular speeding in British cities","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":true,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"npj-sustainable-mobility-and-transport","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"Learn more about [npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport](https://www.nature.com/npjsustainmobil)","snPcode":"44333","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/44333/3","title":"npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"NPJ","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Speeding behaviour, network theory, urban mobility, urban planning, spatial behaviour","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8000426/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8000426/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Vehicular speeding remains a major challenge in urban and transportation planning. 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