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Optimization of Speed Control Hump Profiles

Article  in  Journal of Transportation Engineering · May 2009

DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)TE.1943-5436.0000002

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 Optimization of Speed Control Hump Profiles
S. Caglar Başlamişli1 and Y. Samim Ünlüsoy2

Abstract: In this study, the goal attainment method is implemented for the optimization of speed control hump profiles. Basic dimensions
for a number of hump profile functions are optimized for single vehicles classified in five categories and for a specified distribution of
these vehicles. Objective functions are selected as combinations of the longitudinal and vertical acceleration components at pre-specified
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points on the vehicle body. The main objective is to minimize vehicle response functions below the hump crossing speed limit and to
maximize them above the speed limit. Typical characteristics of a series of two axle vehicles, described by the half car model, are used
and the performances of various hump profiles are assessed.
DOI: 10.1061/共ASCE兲TE.1943-5436.0000002
CE Database subject headings: Traffic speed; Optimization; Traffic management.

Introduction
Speed control humps and bumps are common means of regulating
the speed of traffic flow. Speed humps are characterized by much
longer lengths as shown in Fig. 1 and provide for better ride
comfort compared to speed bumps, as long as speed limits are
obeyed. Drivers know by experience that, at high crossing speeds,
humps cause large vehicle body pitching motion, large suspension
travel, and may further result in wheels losing contact with the
road surface. Speed control bumps, on the other hand, offer a
harsh effect on rides at low crossing speeds and may lose their
effectiveness at higher crossing speeds.
Currently used humps are designed basically by experimenta-
tion as proposed by Fwa and Tan 共1992兲 and Smith and Giese
共1997兲. Surprisingly, limited theoretical work can be found in the
literature on the optimization of speed control hump profiles.
Maemori and Ando 共1987兲 claimed that both speed humps and
speed bumps caused excessive shocks for drivers of heavy ve-
hicles and that semiactive suspensions of light vehicles could im-
prove ride characteristics and decrease the shocks experienced by
the drivers of these vehicles at crossing speeds far above the
speed limit. Their aim was to determine the optimal circular hump
dimensions in order to reduce the excessive shocks experienced
by drivers of heavy vehicles passing current humps at normal
speed and to compensate for the too few shocks experienced by
light vehicles with semiactive suspensions passing over the same
humps at excessive speeds. The maximum acceleration of the
heavy vehicle driver’s seat and that of the light vehicle driver’s
seat were set as a multiobjective function for optimization of the
hump. The maximum acceleration of the light vehicle driver’s
seat was selected as a single objective function for the optimiza-
1 two individual vehicles. In the present study, several objective
Instructor, Mechanical Engineering Dept., Hacettepe Univ., Ankara
06800, Turkey.
2
Professor, Mechanical Engineering Dept., Middle East Technical
Univ., Ankara 06531, Turkey 共corresponding author兲. E-mail: unlusoy@
metu.edu.tr
Note. Discussion open until October 1, 2009. Separate discussions
must be submitted for individual papers. The manuscript for this paper
was submitted for review and possible publication on March 4, 2008;
approved on September 5, 2008. This paper is part of the Journal of
Transportation Engineering, Vol. 135, No. 5, May 1, 2009. ©ASCE,
ISSN 0733-947X/2009/5-260–269/$25.00.
tion of its suspension. The end result was an optimal circular
hump that could effectively punish high-speed crossings of light
vehicles equipped with semiactive suspensions, while substan-
tially improving the ride comfort of heavy vehicles at crossing
speeds below the prescribed hump crossing speed.
Pedersen 共1998兲 proposed that the objective be a ride as pleas-
ant as possible while going over the hump below the speed limit
and a disturbing ride when going too fast. The objective function
was selected as the maximum acceleration that the driver’s head
would experience in a ride over the hump. The speed limit was
selected as 30 km/ h and the desired level of acceleration upon
exceeding the speed limit was arbitrarily fixed at 40 m / s2. The
optimization procedure included two kinds of vehicles, namely a
sports utility vehicle and a generic car, and hump lengths were
fixed at 4 m. The shape of the humps was controlled by ampli-
tudes of basis orthogonal functions. The author concluded that
significant improvement could be made on standard hump de-
signs.
Khorshid and Alfares 共2004兲 considered the shape optimiza-
tion of Watts 共a symetrical hump with sinusoidal or harmonic
rising and returning parts兲, flat topped 共a flat topped hump with
sinusoidal or harmonic rising and returning parts兲, and polyno-
mial humps following basically the same approach as presented
by Pedersen 共1998兲, i.e., shaping of the driver’s head acceleration
versus speed curve. A set of 42 optimal designs were found by
combining different rise/return profiles for the three types of
humps above stated. Again, the writers concluded that significant
improvement could be made on standard hump designs
It should be noted that in all the above stated studies, the
writers considered optimization of hump profiles using at most
functions, i.e., horizontal and vertical components of accelera-
tions of points selected on the vehicle body, are implemented in a
multiobjective optimization procedure, namely the goal attain-
ment method 共GAM兲 first proposed by Gembicki 共1974兲, to allow
them to follow initially determined ideal curves as closely as
possible. Efforts have been made to extend the number and range
of vehicles considered in order to provide a method applicable to
the variety of vehicles in traffic for the optimization of speed
control hump profiles.

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J. Transp. Eng. 2009.135:260-269.

 Fig. 3. Sinusoidal, circular, and parabolic hump profiles

Fig. 1. Speed hump versus speed bump 共1兲 defining the horizontal distance between the driver’s seat and
the center of gravity of the vehicle body and suspension charac-
teristics of the driver’s seat; and 共2兲 an anatomical model for the
Vehicle Model and Specifications driver. To relieve problems of generalization introduced by such
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requirements, it we propose using the classical half car model

Selection of Vehicle Model
An optimal hump shape is expected to cause maximum discom-
fort to the driver exceeding the speed limit while minimizing
discomfort below this reference speed. Ride comfort studies have
shown that measures of driver’s comfort are essentially based on
the level of acceleration experienced by the driver, especially due
to body bounce which is basically the up and down motion of the
vehicle body. The use of International standard ISO 2631-1 共ISO
1997a,b兲 has been commonly accepted. This standard is based
mainly on existing data regarding human exposure to periodic
vibrations. It establishes reduced comfort boundaries that are de-
termined for vertical and horizontal vibrations. These indicate the
maximum tolerable level of maximum vibrations levels 共ex-
pressed in acceleration terms兲 as a function of time and frequency.
In addition to vehicle body bounce, pitching motion 共rotation
of the vehicle body around the lateral axis going through its cen-
ter of gravity兲 turns out to be another effective source of discom-
fort due to the resulting longitudinal acceleration. As a matter of
fact, the Olley criteria 共Milliken et al. 2002兲 proposed rules of
thumb for evaluating ride comfort based bounce and pitch fre-
quencies. Along with these observations, the objective function to
be optimized and the vehicle model to be used should contain
information about driver’s vertical and horizontal acceleration.
The study performed by Maemori and Ando 共1987兲 is based
on the vertical acceleration of the driver’s seat upon crossing the
hump. Models proposed by Pedersen 共1998兲 and Khorshid and
Alfares 共2004兲 consider optimizing the driver’s head acceleration
and encompass modeling the driver’s body. These models require:
共Gillespie 1992; Wong 2001; Milliken et al. 2002兲 as presented in
Fig. 2, and to base hump profile optimization on the vibrational
response of a point selected on the plane of the vehicle body, say,
at the location of the driver’s seat The classical half car model is
a 4 degree of freedom vehicle model consisting of a vehicle body
共sprung mass兲 that has 2 degrees of freedom—bouncing and
pitching—and front and rear unsprung masses each having 1 de-
gree of freedom. Incorporation of both vehicle body pitch and
bounce motions makes this model an obvious choice for the
study.
Equations of Motion for Half-Car Model
In Fig. 2, M, m1, and m2 represent the mass of the vehicle body
共unsprung mass兲, and the front and rear unsprung masses, respec-
tively. Stiffnesses for the front and rear suspensions and the ef-
fective vertical stiffnesses of the front and rear tires are
represented by k1, k2, k3, and k4. Damping due to tires is ignored
as usual.
Bounce dynamics y 1 of the sprung mass, wheel hop dynamics
y 2 of the front unsprung mass, wheel hop dynamics y 3 of the rear
unsprung mass, and pitch dynamics ␪ of the sprung mass of the
half car model are given by the equations of motion in matrix
form
关M兴兵ẍ其 + 关C兴兵ẋ其 + 关K兴兵x其 = 关F兴 共1兲
where
兵x其 = 关y 1 ␪ y2 y 3兴 T 共2兲

冤 冥再 冎
0 0
0 0 yf
兵F其 = 关H兴兵y其 = 共3兲
k3 0 yr
0 k3

兵F其 = 关0 0 k3y f k 4 y r兴 T 共4兲

冤 冥
M 0 0 0
0 I 0 0
关M兴 = 共5兲
0 0 m1 0
0 0 0 m2

冤 冥
c1 + c2 − ac1 + bc2 − c1 − c2
− ac1 + bc2 a2c1 + b2c2 ac1 − bc2
关C兴 = 共6兲
− c1 ac1 c1 0
Fig. 2. Half-car model − c2 − bc2 0 c2

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J. Transp. Eng. 2009.135:260-269.

 Table 1. Vehicle Specifications
Vehicle A Vehicle B Vehicle C Vehicle D Vehicle E
M 共kg兲 1,350 900 2,000 5,000 13,000
I 共kg m2兲 2,400 1,000 4,900 20,900 40,000
m1 共kg兲 45 35 105 15 1,350
m2 共kg兲 70 50 110 180 1,400
k1 共N m兲 40,000 30,000 55,000 280,000 650,000
k3 共N m兲 250,000 180,000 400,000 800,000 6,000,000
k2 共N m兲 45,000 35,000 60,000 290,000 700,000
k4 共N m兲 300,000 180,000 400,000 800,000 6,000,000
c1 共N s/m兲 2,200 2,000 4,000 10,950 41,000
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c2 共N s/m兲 1,800 1,500 3,000 9,970 39,520

a 共m兲 1.21 0.77 1.31 1.26 2.58
b 共m兲 1.31 1.15 1.60 2.34 1.72
xc 共m兲 0.60 0.38 0.65 0.63 1.29
y c 共m兲 0.30 0.19 0.33 0.32 0.65

冤 冥
k1 + k2 − ak1 + bk2 − k1 − k2
2 2
− ak1 + bk2 a k1 + b k2 ak1 − bk2
关K兴 = 共7兲
− k1 ak1 k1 + k3 0 An iterative method was implemented to achieve the conve-
− k2 − bk2 0 k2 + k4
Selection of Vehicle Categories
The range of vehicle types on the roads extends from the light
passenger car to the heavy commercial vehicle. Ideally, an ex-
haustive study would have consisted of collecting a large amount
of vehicle data in order to perform the optimization calculations.
However, vehicles with varying specifications do not always dif-
fer with respect to their main vibrational characteristics.
For the purposes of this paper, the resonant frequencies of
interest are those related to the bounce and pitch of the sprung
mass on the suspensions, and the motion of the unsprung masses
over the combined tire and wheel compliance. Suspension design
generally starts with the selection of a convenient body bounce
frequency and it has been known that the lower the frequency of
vibration of the car body on its suspension spring, the greater the
comfort. In modern medium to large size cars, the body bounce
frequency has settled to approximately 1.2 Hz 共Gillespie 1992兲.
Meanwhile, higher bounce frequencies are observed in commer-
cial vehicles as their suspensions must be stiff enough to prevent
excessively large deflections. Further, studies have shown that the
wheel hop 共the up and down motion of the wheel on the com-
bined elasticity of the suspension and tires兲, frequency is roughly
ten times greater than the body bounce frequency. Given these
guidelines, specifications of five types of vehicles were designed
also based on the Olley criteria 共Milliken et al. 2002兲 stating that:
共1兲 the front suspension should have a slightly lower ride rate than
the rear suspension; 共2兲 pitch and bounce frequencies should be
close; and 共3兲 neither frequency should be greater than 1.3 Hz for
passenger cars.
nient ranges of frequencies and deflections for each vehicle. In
Table 1, Vehicle A represents a medium size passenger car, Ve-
hicle B a small size passenger car, Vehicle C a large size passen-
ger car, Vehicle D a small size commercial vehicle, and Vehicle E
a large size commercial vehicle.
Hump Shapes
The list of commonly used speed control hump shapes includes
sinusoidal, circular, and parabolic humps; each with two param-
eters to be optimized, the base width, L, and the height, H, as
shown in Fig. 3. The common use for these profiles is basically
due to their simplicity and the resulting ease of construction. Just
to examine if there may be others substantially superior to these
simple and commonly used profiles, and being guided by Khor-
shid and Alfares 共2004兲, it is decided to consider a number of
new, but somewhat more complicated profiles.
In this study, combination hump profiles, i.e., sine-parabola,
and trapezoidal profiles have been added to the list. The former is
built up from ascending and descending sinusoidal parts and a
parabolic top. Its design parameters are the imaginary sinusoidal
half cycle length L1, length of sinusoidal part L 共defining k
= L1 / L兲, the half length of parabolic part L2, the imaginary height
of sinusoidal half cycle H1, and the height of parabolic part H2, as
shown in Fig. 4. The latter consists of the horizontal length of a
ramp section L1, the half length of the flat top L2, and the height
H, as illustrated in Fig. 5.
The idea of optimizing the parameters of a parabola is then
extended to consider higher order polynomials. An algorithm is
devised to handle polynomials up to 12th order. The dimensions
of the polynomial hump are the base width L, the overall height

Fig. 4. Sine-parabola hump profile Fig. 5. Trapezoidal hump profile

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J. Transp. Eng. 2009.135:260-269.


Fig. 6. Polynomial hump profile
H, and some polynomial coefficients an, as shown in Fig. 6.
Finally, as a general shape optimization problem, coordinates
of points describing the hump profile are selected as the variable
parameters. Discretely defined points on the hump profile are con-
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nected by straight lines. These synthesized hump profiles have
variable parameters stored in two vectors: one for the horizontal
coordinates and another for the vertical coordinates of the points.
The number of points to be considered depends on the accuracy
of definition required, as shown in Fig. 7.
Optimization
The techniques for multiobjective optimization are wide and var-
ied, and the GAM first proposed by Gembicki 共1974兲 has been
implemented in this study. GAM differs from the commonly used
weighted sum strategy, which converts the multiobjective prob-
lem of minimizing the vector of objectives F(x) into a scalar
problem by constructing a weighted sum of all the objectives. The
following describes how GAM has been applied to the present
problem.
Descriptive Explanation of GAM „Gembicki 1974…
Multiobjective optimization problems deal with the tradeoff of
objectives in a vector F(x) = 兵F1共x兲 , F2共x兲 , . . . , Fm共x兲其 can be de-
fined. F(x) may be subject to a number of constraints and bounds
Gi共x兲.
It should be noted that because F(x) is a vector, if any of the
components of F(x) are competing, there is no unique solution to
this problem. Instead, the concept of noninferiority, also called
Pareto optimality, must be used to characterize the objectives. A
noninferior solution is one in which an improvement in one ob-
jective requires a degradation of another. GAM like other multi-
objective optimization techniques is concerned with the
generation and selection of noninferior solution points, a basic
step leading to determination of the optimal solution.
GAM involves expressing a set of design goals, F*
= 兵F*1 , F*2 , . . . , Fm* 其, which is associated with a set of objectives
F共x兲 = 兵F1共x兲 , F2共x兲 , . . . , Fm共x兲其. The problem formulation allows
the objectives to be under- or overachieved enabling the designer
to be relatively imprecise about initial design goals. The relative
degree of under- or overachievement of the goals is controlled by
Fig. 7. Synthesized hump profile
JOURNAL OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING © ASCE / MAY 2009 / 263
J. Transp. Eng. 2009.135:260-269.
a vector of weighting coefficients w = 兵w1 , w2 , . . . , wm其, and is ex-
pressed as a standard optimization problem using the following
formulation:
Minimize ␥
␥ 苸 R, x苸⍀
such that Fi共x兲 − wi* ␥ 艋 Fi* i = 1, . . . m 共8兲
The term 共wi·␥兲 introduces an element of slackness into the
problem, which otherwise imposes that the goals be rigidly met.
The weighting vector w enables the designer to express a measure
of the relative tradeoffs between the objectives. Hard constraints
can be incorporated into the design by setting a particular weight-
ing factor close to zero. GAM provides a convenient intuitive
interpretation of the design problem, which can be solved using
standard optimization procedures, like sequential quadratic pro-
gramming 共SQP兲.
Application of Goal Attainment Method to Optimization
of Speed Control Hump Profiles
We let
F1共x,Vi兲 = maximum absolute vertical acceleration at speed Vi;
F2共x,Vi兲 = maximum absolute longitudinal acceleration
at speed Vi
of a point D, selected around the driver’s seat location on the
plane of the vehicle body, constitute response functions to be
optimized. Here, x denotes the vector of hump dimensions and
Vis consist of selected vehicle longitudinal speeds.
Here, responses F1共x , Vi兲 and F2共x , Vi兲 should be minimized
below and maximized above the selected reference speed limit. In
other words, the efficiency of the hump is assessed according to
the slope of the response curve around the speed limit; the higher
the value of the slope, the greater the efficiency of the hump will
be.
One way of defining ideal response curves is the selection of
goal points. To be considered as ideal, responses should follow
goal points as closely as possible. In the present case, an ideal
curve is any curve that remains between the boundaries shown on
Fig. 8, while following the goal points as closely as possible.
Thus, the goal of the designer is to construct response curves by
forcing them to pass through several goal points in order for them
to remain between the two design boundaries. Note that the goal
points have to be selected differently for the maximum vertical
acceleration and the maximum longitudinal acceleration cases as
vertical acceleration levels recorded during hump crossing are
substantially greater than longitudinal acceleration levels. 共The
physical explanation lies in the fact that the vehicle model expe-
riences direct vertical excitations from the road while the horizon-
tal acceleration is due to pitching caused by the lag between front
and rear suspension excitations. Obviously the latter, which is a
rather indirect effect, is less pronounced than the former.兲
In Fig. 8, F*n 共V兲 is either F*1 共V兲 or F*2 共V兲. V0 = speed value at
which the analysis begins; V1 = selected speed limit and represents
the lower limit of the interval in which the objective is mini-
mized; and V2 = upper bound of the speed interval where the vi-
brational response functions are to be maximized and is selected
as close as possible to V1 while fixing optimization goal points
F*n 共V1兲 and F*n 共V2兲 as far from each other as possible, in the

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Fig. 8. Ideal response curve
feasible range. V3 represents the speed at which the response may
start to flatten as the values reached are estimated to be high
enough. V4 = upper limit for the speed range considered in the
analysis 共see Fig. 9兲.
V1 depends on the particular traffic application for the speed
hump. It should be noted that the hump crossing speed limit V1
differs from the speed limit decided by traffic authorities for a
given road section. The hump crossing speed limit and the hump
Fig. 9. Iterative solution method
264 / JOURNAL OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING © ASCE / MAY 2009
J. Transp. Eng. 2009.135:260-269.
laying intervals must be designed so as not to allow drivers to
exceed prescribed road speed limits between two speed control
humps. A survey of the literature 共Maemori and Ando 1987; Ped-
ersen 1998; Khorshid and Alfares 2004兲 shows that the speed
limit V1 varies from 15 to 40 km/ h in various countries and under
various road conditions.
We now propose an alternative description of GAM for the
present problem. For a single vehicle 共with index k兲, the optimi-
zation problem is now stated as the minimization of the objective
共cost兲 function, Ck, obtained by first defining the matrix
Fn共x,Vi兲 − F*n 共Vi兲
Cin = 共i = speed index; and n = 1,2兲 共9兲
win
where win stands for the selected weighting coefficients. It is easy
to see that if any of the wins are set at zero, this indicates that the
response curve is expected to pass exactly through the goal point.
Then, GAM requires choosing
Ck = max共Cin兲 共10兲
i,n
and finally, the overall cost function to be minimized for a distri-
bution of k vehicles is then simply
␥ = max共Ck兲 共11兲
k
subject to constraints on hump dimensions.
Solution Technique
The solution technique is explained in what follows and is de-
picted in Fig. 10.
1 The procedure starts with the selection of the hump crossing
speed limit V1 and the speed V2;
2. Next, F*1 共V1兲, F*1 共V2兲, F*2 共V1兲, and F*2 共V2兲 must be set. In
selecting these goals for longitudinal and vertical accelera-
tions, we make use of an iterative procedure. We may start
with goals that are relatively difficult to achieve 关hence se-
lecting F*1 共V1兲 and F*2 共V1兲 as low as possible while fixing
F*1 共V2兲 and F*2 共V2兲 as high as possible兴;
3 At the onset of the optimization, we also select ␥*, which
stands for an upper limit for our objective function C and the
maximum number of iterations nmax. The attainment or non-
attainment of ␥* will determine if we should modify our
initial settings as explained below. It may happen that the
optimization routine becomes stuck close to ␥*. This is the
reason why we have to set the stopping criterion n ⬎ nmax;
and
4 Observing the output of the optimization procedure, we de-
cide whether we have to select easier goals 关setting the pair
F*1 共V1兲-F*2 共V1兲 higher and/or setting the pair F*1 共V2兲-F*2 共V2兲
lower兴 or even harder goals 关setting the pair F*1 共V1兲-F*2 共V1兲
lower and/or setting the pair F*1 共V2兲-F*2 共V2兲 higher兴. Another
possibility may be to reset the value of V2.
The above has been applied time and again in the “Case Stud-
ies.” Values for V2, F*1 共V1兲, F*1 共V2兲, F*2 共V1兲, and F*2 共V2兲 that have
been used in the next section are the result of this repetitive
procedure.
 Case Studies

Case Study 1
The optimization algorithm is run for all vehicles simultaneously
for
• V1 = 18 Km/ h; V2 = 25.2 Km/ h; V3 = 36 Km/ h; V4 = 54 Km/ h;
• F*1 共V1兲 = 3 m / s2; F*1 共V2兲 = 8 m / s2; and
• F*2 共V1兲 = 1 m / s2; F*2 共V2兲 = 4 m / s2.
The optimized sine-parabola hump profile turns out to be the
most suitable hump profile for Case Study 1, displaying the best
vertical acceleration behavior. The vehicle responses over the op-
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timal hump are shown in Fig. 10.

Case Study 2
The analysis is repeated for:
1. A typical sinusoidal hump, in current use in the United King-
dom 共4 in. in height and 12 ft in length兲;
2. Optimal sine parabola humps of unconstrained dimensions
optimized for each vehicle type separately; and
3. Sine parabola humps of dimensions comparable to the sinu-
soidal hump 共sizes corresponding to limited length in Table
2兲, and optimized for each vehicle type separately.
Vertical acceleration response are given in Fig. 11 where signifi-
cant improvement in hump performance can be observed over the
standard sinusoidal hump by using optimized sine parabola pro-
files for speed control purposes.

Fig. 10. Optimal sine-parabola hump for Case Study 1: 共a兲 hump
profile; 共b兲 enlarged scale in y-direction; 共c兲 F1 response; and 共d兲 F2
response 共L1 = 4.000 m L2 = 2.745 m; H1 = 0.181 m; H2 = 0.316 m;
k = 2.909; cost function ␥ = 0.19兲
Case Study 3
Finally, it is desired to set the speed limit to 50 Km/ h on a resi-
dential road where frequent pedestrian crossings are present. The
hump crossing speed limit is desired to be first about 25 Km/ h
and then 30 Km/ h for all kinds of vehicles that ordinarily use the
road. A 1-week survey showed the following distribution of ve-
hicles crossing the hump:
• Small passenger cars 共Vehicle A兲: 25%;
• Medium-size passenger cars 共Vehicle B兲: 35%;
• Large-size passenger cars 共Vehicle C兲: 20%;
• Small-size commercial vehicles 共Vehicle D兲: 15%; and

Table 2. Results for Optimal Sine Parabola Humps 共Case Study 2兲

Vehicle Sine parabola
type hump type Hump dimensions
A Optimal L1 = 4.0815 m; L2 = 2.7792 m; H1 = 0.2226 m; H2 = 0.3688 m; k = 2.7596; Lover = 8.3 m;
Hover = 0.55 m

Limited length L1 = 1.999; L2 = 0.9571; H1 = 0.1762; H2 = 0.0243; k = 2.7596; Lover = 3.4 m; Hover = 0.18 m
B Optimal L1 = 4.0196 m; L2 = 2.7379 m; H1 = 0.1343 m; H2 = 0.2658 m; k = 2.8722; Lover = 8.2 m;
Hover = 0.38 m

Limited length L1 = 2 m; L2 = 1 m; H1 = 0.096 m; H2 = 0.0356 m; k = 2 Lover = 4 m; Hover = 0.14 m

C Optimal L1 = 4.2325 m; L2 = 2.6584 m; H1 = 0.2623 m; H2 = 0.369 m; k = 2.6233; Lover = 9.2 m; Hover = 0.62 m

Limited length L1 = 2 m; L2 = 0.9571 m; H1 = 0.1643 m; H2 = 0.0243 m; k = 2; Lover = 3.9 m; Hover = 0.18 m

D Optimal L1 = 5 m; L2 = 2.62 m; H1 = 0.2258 m; H2 = 0.2222 m; k = 4.0785; Lover = 7.6 m; Hover = 0.38 m

Limited length L1 = 1.9542 m; L2 = 0.9989 m; H1 = 0.121 m; H2 = 0.0201 m; k = 2; Lover = 3.9 m; Hover = 0.14 m
E Optimal L1 = 4.5977 m; L2 = 4.6805 m; H1 = 0.1767 m; H2 = 0.5629 m; k = 4; Lover = 12 m; Hover = 0.68 m

Limited length L1 = 1.9793 m; L2 = 1 m; H1 = 0.0463 m; H2 = 0.0628 m; k = 2; Lover = 3.8 m; Hover = 0.11 m

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Fig. 11. Comparison for various F1 responses over various types of humps for Case Study 2: 共a兲 Vehicle A; 共b兲 Vehicle B; 共c兲 Vehicle C; 共d兲
Vehicle D; and 共e兲 Vehicle E

• Large-size commercial vehicles 共Vehicle E兲: 5%.
For the case where V1 = 25 Km/ h the settings are as follows:
• V1 = 25 Km/ h; V2 = 30 Km/ h; V3 = 40 Km/ h; V4 = 54 Km/ h;
• F*1 共V1兲 = 4 m / s2; F*1 共V2兲 = 8 m / s2; and
• F*2 共V1兲 = 1 m / s2; F*2 共V2兲 = 4 m / s2.
Optimization weights are selected according to the vehicle dis-
tribution: the higher the frequency of a vehicle type traveling on a
given road section, the lower the weight. Hence, the lowest
weights are attributed to the goals concerning the performance of
Vehicle B in this case.
The most suitable profiles for V1 = 25 Km/ h turn out to be a
trapezoidal and the synthesized hump profile. In synthesizing the
latter, coordinates of the optimized trapezoidal hump have been
taken as the initial guess. Results for the trapezoidal hump are
shown in Fig. 12. The profile of the optimal synthesized hump is
listed in Table 3, and is plotted in Fig. 13.
As the percentage of heavy commercial vehicles likely to cross
the hump is only 5%, the optimization is implemented to elimi-
nate these in determining the optimal hump profile. However, the
effect of the hump on this category of vehicles is later assessed by
plotting their acceleration response. As can be seen in Figs. 12
and 13, the optimal hump profiles seem to offer harsh rides for
these vehicles as expected.
The same calculations are finally performed for V1
= 30 Km/ h with the following settings:
• V1 = 30 Km/ h; V2 = 35 Km/ h; V3 = 50 Km/ h, V4 = 54 Km/ h;

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Fig. 12. Optimal trapezoidal hump profile for Case Study 3: 共a兲 Fig. 13. Optimal synthesized hump for Case Study 3: 共a兲 hump pro-
hump profile; 共b兲 enlarged scale in y-direction; 共c兲 F1 response; and file; 共b兲 enlarged scale in y-direction; 共c兲 F1 response; and 共d兲 F2
共d兲 F2 response for trapezoidal hump 共L1 = 4.579 m, L2 = 0.922 m, response
H = 0.478 m, Lover = 11.000 m; cost function ␥ = 0.19兲

expected increase about the speed limit is clearly observed, but it

• F*1 共V1兲 = 5 m / s2; F*1 共V2兲 = 10 m / s2; and
• F*2 共V1兲 = 1 m / s2; F*2 共V2兲 = 4 m / s2.
The most suitable hump profile is then a polynomial hump
profile. Optimal hump and acceleration profiles for the polyno-
mial hump are shown in Fig. 14.
Discussion of Results and Conclusions
A practical approach has been developed for optimizing speed
control hump profiles. The acceleration responses of several cat-
egories of vehicle types have been shaped simultaneously. The
is noted that the efficiency of the method depends on the value of
the speed limit; the higher the speed limit the lower the expected
efficiency.
The weighting coefficients used in the optimization will be
tuned by experimentation after which they could be used to fully
characterize hump performance for a given design speed limit and
vehicle distribution.
Studies have indicated that the commonly used sinusoidal, cir-
cular, and parabolic profiles do not perform well according to the
hump efficiency requirements. Polynomial and trapezoidal pro-
files are seen to produce better results. However, the optimization

Table 3. Results for Optimal Synthesized Hump 共Case Study 3兲

Hump dimensions
共m兲 Cost function= 0.067
vx = 关0.000兴 0.200 0.400 0.600 0.800 1.000 1.200 1.400 1.600 1.800 2.000
2.200 2.400 2.600 2.800 3.000 3.200 3.400 3.600 3.800 4.000 —
4.200 4.400 4.600 4.800 5.000 5.200 5.400兴 — — — —
vy = 关0.000兴 0.043 0.070 0.101 0.120 0.127 0.139 0.156 0.180 0.203 —
0.232 0.248 0.270 0.288 0.306 0.342 0.375 0.402 0.420 0.429 —
0.448 0.464 0.484 0.491 0.498 0.497 0.493 0.498兴 — — —

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Fig. 14. Optimal polynomial hump for Case Study 3: 共a兲 hump
profile; 共b兲 enlarged scale in y-direction; 共a兲 F1 response; 共b兲 F2 re-
sponse 共a2 = 0.09917, a4 = 0.01109, a6 = 0.00293, a8 = −0.00005,
a10 = −0.00002, H = 0.194 m, L = 6.806 m; ␥ = 0.204兲
procedure run for all vehicles simultaneously yields best results
when higher order curves 共especially the sine-parabola hump兲 are
implemented.
Efforts are now directed to improve the profiles of the optimal
humps through the implementation of the coordinates of the
points defining their profiles as initial guesses for synthesized
profiles. In that case, optimization goals are quite effectively
reached 共Case Study 3兲. However, there are some problems re-
lated to the resulting shapes of these humps as they may turn out
to be impractical for construction.
Still, it is believed that one of the major contributions of this
study has been the detection of a particular type of hump profile
as illustrated by the results of Case Studies 1 and 3. Most of the
time, the resulting optimal hump profile has been observed to
possess “three bumps.” This finding may be the key element to
the efficiency to the proposed algorithm. Hence, by using only
seven independent parameters at most, one can design both effi-
cient and constructible humps.
Notation
The following symbols are used in this paper:
a ⫽ horizontal distance from front suspension to
vehicle body center of gravity;
an ⫽ coefficient for polynomial hump;
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J. Transp. Eng. 2009.135:260-269.
b ⫽ horizontal distance from rear suspension to
vehicle body center of gravity;
c1 ⫽ front suspension damping coefficient for half-
car model;
c2 ⫽ rear suspension damping coefficient for half-
car model;
F共x兲 ⫽ vector of objective functions;
Fi* ⫽ optimization goal;
Fi共x兲 ⫽ objective for goal attainment method;
H ⫽ hump dimension 共height兲;
Hover ⫽ hump dimension 共overall height兲 defined for
camel, polynomial, and sine-parabola humps;
H1 ⫽ hump dimension 共height兲 defined for
sine-parabola humps;
H2 ⫽ hump dimension 共height兲 defined for
sine-parabola humps;
I ⫽ mass moment of inertia of vehicle body in
pitching;
k ⫽ coefficient for sine-parabola hump;
kb ⫽ suspension stiffness for quarter car model;
kt ⫽ tire stiffness for quarter car model;
k1 ⫽ front suspension stiffness for half-car model;
k2 ⫽ front tire stiffness for half-car model;
k3 ⫽ rear suspension stiffness for half-car model;
k4 ⫽ rear tire stiffness for half-car model;
L ⫽ hump dimension 共length兲;
Lover ⫽ hump dimension 共overall length兲 defined for
trapezoidal, camel, and sine-parabola humps;
L1 ⫽ hump dimension 共length兲 defined for
trapezoidal and sine-parabola humps;
L2 ⫽ hump dimension 共length兲 defined for
trapezoidal and sine-parabola humps;
M ⫽ sprung mass;
me ⫽ number of equality constraints;
m1 ⫽ front unsprung mass for half car model;
m2 ⫽ rear unsprung mass for half car model;
V ⫽ forward speed;
V0 ⫽ lower limit for analysis;
V1 ⫽ hump crossing speed limit;
V2 ⫽ upper speed limit of Region 2;
V3 ⫽ upper speed limit of Region 3;
V4 ⫽ upper speed limit of analysis;
vx ⫽ vector of x coordinates for synthesized hump;
vy ⫽ vector of y coordinates for synthesized hump;
wi ⫽ weighting coefficient;
x ⫽ state variable;
xc ⫽ horizontal coordinate of point D;
y c ⫽ vertical coordinate of point D;
y f ⫽ front tire displacement for half car model;
y r ⫽ rear tire displacement for half car model;
y 1 ⫽ vehicle body vertical displacement;
y 2 , y 3 ⫽ sprung mass vertical displacement;
␥ ⫽ cost function for goal attainment method; and
␪ ⫽ pitching angle of vehicle body in
counterclockwise direction.
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