Roads

“Where we’re going, we don’t need roads….”

Thus spoke Doc Emmett Brown in Back to the future, demonstrating his flying DeLorean to Marty McFly.

That’s the future. One day we will fly everywhere. The main issues are energy use, noise and control. Noise and control are in the process of being solved, energy use requires better batteries and cheaper electricity. It will come.

But in the present, we do very much need roads.

Roads have fascinated me for a very long time: from a young age I lived sitting in the back of various parents and relatives cars and watching the other cars and the world go by. But sitting on the garden wall for hours watching the traffic on what used to be the A34 pre-Abingdon bypass was my greatest pleasure: the endless parade of British and foreign cars, British (always British) lorries. Scammell, Foden, Dennis, Leyland and so on. What was in them, where were they going? My favourites were the Scammell Scarab three wheeler articulated lorries owned by British Railways. I always thought them inadequate and under-powered, even then.

I became, and remain, fascinated by road junction design. From the simple Give Way T-junction to the looping, swirling multi-level over and under passes of motorway interchanges watching them work (or in some cases fail to work) is a form of relaxation.

My grandparents lived in Southampton so our family would traipse up and down the A34 and over the years I watched it become a dual-carriageway; the first section was built in 1962 around East Ilsley and the last was the controversial Newbury bypass, now just a not very well graded section of dual carriageway, built around 1996. Assorted eco-warriors including the infamous Swampy disrupted its construction, causing a nationwide backlash against road improvements for 20 years and is the largest reason for the dreadful congestion that plagues the UK road system. It's strange that the voluime of land occupied by new housing dwarfs any road investments and with the advent of electric cars the Government can't play the pollution blame game any more.

The basic design of traffic priorities and Give Ways were standardised a long time ago in that traffic on a major road has right of way over traffic arriving from a minor road.
Except, of course, in France (and indeed Spain) where the infamous priorite a droite continues to this day to provide a ready source of minor traffic collisions in out of the way junctions where traffic priority is unmarked by white lines.

The key to this being an efficient way of regulating traffic flow was and remains the fact that if no traffic is at the junction with a higher priority than you, you don’t need to stop. This allows free flow in low to medium traffic densities.

However, a second form of traffic priority arrived with traffic lights, a most unwelcome invention, in 1868 and sadly yes, invented in Britain.

In this case a third priority is introduced, that of the traffic lights. If the light is red you must stop, introducing delays and impeding traffic flow.

This was seen as the “answer” to higher traffic flows at junctions. It is effective at very high traffic flows, however virtually every junction only ever sees high traffic flows for a very small proportion of the day, usually during the morning and evening rush hours. For the remainder of the time much of the traffic is sitting at a red light looking at an empty junction whilst a clockwork timer or programmable logic controller counts down the seconds before it changes the sequence. This creates traffic jams and is often used as a justification for further traffic calming in an ever-decreasing spiral. Examples include Oxford and most of urban Wales.

The answer appeared to be the traffic circle, invented by the Americans and a complete and utter disaster from day one, causing more delays than it solved, by giving priority to traffic approaching the circle.

However, despairing and maverick traffic engineers at the UK Transport and Road Research Laboratory re-invented it by changing the priorities such that traffic on the circle had priority, and the improvement in free-flowing traffic movement and junction capacity was so great that it became, and remains, the gold standard of junction design all over the civilised world.
Except America.

What is wrong with American roads? Where do I start? I’ve lived there, so have had time to study them at my leisure in some detail.

The default Go-Stop-Go system in unsynchronised traffic light after unsynchronised traffic light in any urban setting is grossly inefficient and hopelessly expensive in maintenance.

The cars are slow, their suspension is laughable, the road surfaces thump-thump-thump hopelessly, the tyres are way too soft, the speed limits are ludicrously low.

The standard of the driving test is wholly inadequate but, surprisingly, the driving is, on the whole, pretty good (well, compared to India, say...). Allowing passing on both sides helps control road rage: yes, the stereotype American pensioner driver exists but they can usually be driven round.

The 4-way Stop is just the most ludicrous invention ever. The only saving grace is the ability to turn right on red, a loose and tatty sticking plaster on a rotting traffic system.

The major issue is that the whole system is designed around stopping, not filtering. So now they are starting to build roundabouts again but Americans drive up to them and instead of filtering on, they stop. As they’ve been programmed to do in Drivers Ed (at school, can you believe it, driving lessons on Wednesday afternoons between Biology and Double Maths?) at 16 years old.

The failings of traffic lights has had designers tying themselves up in knots for 130 years. We’ve seen embedded traffic sensors, flashing green filters lanes, synchronised arrays like the A4 in central London, time-sensitive controllers, sensors that allow you to flash your lights and they’ll change, CCTV-driven traffic control computers like the one in the Italian job, they’re all useless. Rip them all out and put in roundabouts everywhere. The magic roundabouts in Swindon, Hemel Hempstead and Heathrow all work beautifully, I’ve driven them all.

From big roundabouts to white-paint only mini roundabouts, they’ve taken over the world. Except in Britain where they were invented, traffic designers are still fitting traffic lights that should be roundabouts. As the Americans would say, “Go Figure”.

At a young age I was introduced to the Spanish method of junction design. Being, at the time (and this was the 1960’s) even poorer than Britain they couldn’t afford traffic lights but they could afford white paint and by God they used it. Even the smallest sheep flock junction that saw 4 SEAT cars a day had Give Way, filter lanes, turn left lanes, turn right lanes, straight on lanes, U-turn lanes, arrows, dotted lines, solid lines, It was, and remains, mind-blowing.
The Spanish do one thing right, though: many of the traffic lights are peak time only and outside those hours switch to flashing orange all round: the equivalent of the French shrug: “I am at lunch, you work it out yourselves…”. It works beautifully.

I drew roads for most of my childhood (when I wasn't building model aircraft or reading science fiction): massive, loopy and impractical junctions. Then I learned to drive and discovered the secret: junctions are all about sightlines. If you can see, you can filter, and that's good traffic design. Some wonk at the DoT a few years ago decided joining the M4 roundabout at Swindon from the A346 was far too easy, and added fences to destroy the sightline, so you had to stop. You what?
I am very rude about the DoT but they do have some good ideas: 15 years ago they redesigned the exit slip from the M40 to the M25. No new tarmac, just different lane designs. It solved a massive daily traffic jam instantly. They'd clearly been to Spain and seen the value of white paint.
Spain is interesting: like America, roads may enter or exit from either side of the Autopista. This takes a little getting used to but saves on bridges. They clearly took the American interchange model to heart, though: many of their motorway interchanges are worthy of American cities and require Google Maps to navigate. They appear to have had competitions to see who could design and build the most complex layouts. They actually do work quite well, they certainly don't have the traffic jams we do...

English roads are dire to drive on: I drive in Europe a lot and they have clearly got their act together. Both the designers and the drivers work harmoniously to expedit fast, painless motoring. But in the UK both the designers and the idiots using the roads seem hell-bent on making the roads hard to use.

Apart from the obvious overcrowding, there are 3 major issues adversely affecting the flow of traffic on British roads, and I’d like to suggest solutions for them:

1. The Middle Lane or outside lane owners club

They drastically reduce the capacity of a multi-lane road and contribute to road rage.

The practice has become prevalent over the last 20 years or so but its origins can be seen in the 1960’s YouTube film easily viewed by searching for “London to Bath 1963” at 1:20.

Whether driven by the thought “10 mph under the limit is good enough for me, so it’s good enough for the 10 cars stacked up behind me”, by fear that once relegated to a leftward lane they will somehow be unable to pull out again, belief that the 1st lane is the “Lorry Lane”, by just sheer laziness or “why should you go faster than me?” they need re-educating.

Tempting as it is to recommend instant lifetime bans, roadside car-crushing and public flogging on Live TV, in reality they’re just people, and a carrot and stick attitude is needed to change hearts and minds.

So I propose a small civil service agency. One person and a dog should do it, nothing fancy. The person feeds the dog, the dog is there to ensure the person doesn’t touch the computer.

First we need to define lane-hogging. Say 30 seconds of staying out in the middle or right hand lane when the lane or lanes to the left are empty and a car or cars wishing to go faster than you qualifies.

This department has an E-mail address to which dash cam owners can send lane hogging evidence. A small piece of AI software (not the person or the dog) can process the videos to ensure the party is guilty and if so, a quick DVLA look up, a copy of the video on a USB stick in the post with a Fixed Penalty Notice of £100 goes to the car owner.

Running costs of the department will come from the fines, which will also pay for an advertising campaign: stop lane hogging or get fined. Simple. And no waste of Police time.

Repeat offenders get repeat fines, it could get expensive for certain motorists…

My experience is that on a single run up the A34 from Sutton Scotney to Oxford I could video about £1,000 worth of fines, and an M4 run from Chieveley to London £2,000.

Objections:

“But I didn’t do it/wasn’t there”. Major roads have ANPR cameras, this can provide proof of location & time.

“It encourages people to spy on other motorists”. That ship has sailed, I’m afraid. Everyone has dashcams now.

“It’s another Government method to make money”. No, all the fines go into advertising or the (minimal) department running costs, mainly electricity and dog food. These costs of course should be completely transparent (as should all local and National government expenditure).

“I was preventing the people behind from speeding”. Not your job, matey.

“There are potholes in the left lane”. Unlikely, although there may be tramlines where the lorry tyres have depressed the surface. Imagine having to drive a recalcitrant 44 Tonner down it…..

“I’m scared of the lorries coming up behind me”. Try driving faster or getting some more post-test lessons.

“I was about to turn right”. Suggest we exclude roads where right turns through the central reservation are necessary, although I’ve seen people prepare for that turn 5-6 miles early.

“But I was in MY lane. MY lane!” (My favourite). It’s not your lane. Get over.

2. Elephant racing, or lorry overtakes of greater than 30 seconds.
When being passed, a lorry driver must slow to allow the faster vehicle to pass, or a fine will result. This will reduce the elephant racing so prevalent on dual-carriageways.

3. Excessive coning of roads

It’s interesting to watch European and American roadworks working fast and with a bare minimum of cones.

The excessive coning phenomenon, often combined with average speed camera-policed speed limits, is a recent and hugely unwelcome addition to our roads. Combined with shall we say a lackadaisical approach to the works involved results in miles of empty roadworks, excessive driver frustration and road rage.

Examples include the 27 mile 18 month roadworks on the M4 between Chieveley and Theale for repair works to 4 bridges under the motorway several miles apart (only one of which was being repaired at any given time), and the 8 months of 4 way temporary traffic lights on the A350 in Sturminster Marshall required to add 2 electrical connections for new houses, a weeks work at the most.

The answer is simple: in the contract for the works to be undertaken, be they in urban, rural or motorway settings, a system of lane rental must be introduced, payable by the contractors to The Highways Agency. The lane rental must be per 100m and varying according to time of day or night, the level and pattern of traffic on the road and whether traffic lights are used. This will financially encourage the contractors to perform the works quickly, out of peak hours or at night.

So lane rental might be £1/hr on a night time motorway, £100/hr in the daytime and evening and £1000/hr in rush hour. Obviously when not renting the lanes traffic lights and cones must be removed.

Careful determination of the lane rental should allow the contractors to either do the work with minimal impact on the road users and make a profit, or do it like they do it now, make a thumping loss and go out of business.

Come on Highways Agency and the local councils, step up to the mark on this one.

4 Road design
Junctions get congested, the local council gets petitioned, they pass the request to The Highways Agency, they consult their boffins and a solution is sometimes created.

But why do the people that actually use the junctions never get consulted? I lose count of the times I’ve sat at red lights when there’s not another car for miles, or queued for a T-junction that would work so much better as a mini-roundabout.

The road system could be so much more efficient with some cheap mods, which are pretty obvious to all the drivers sitting waiting at the unnecessarily congested junction.

I suggest a simple solution:

A series of notices around a junction with congestion giving a web site address where motorists using the junction can make suggestions to improve the flow. These suggestions (being from the people using the junction) should take priority in the Council discussion as to how to fix the issue. Users know best!

Often a simple bit of paint and a few sign changes could do the job far more effectively than £millions spent on complex solutions.

Classic example: dual the A303 past Stonehenge. It just requires a single additional two lane road parallel to the first by a couple of feet, with safety barriers. That becomes the Southbound cariageway once complete, the existing road remains the Northbound carriageway. Job done for £500,000.
The Winterbourne Stoke bypass just to the West is a different matter: it's a huge valley that will require a big bridge, but this is not controversial and can be considered a separate scheme.
But no: we've had Government, CPRE, English Heritage, the druids, the local council, and everyone else have got involved, and all have pointed fingers at each others and the whole thing just hasn't happened..... for fifty years.

5 Technology
Technology is a wonderful thing, but it’s a double edged sword: it can just as easily harm the user as the intended recipient.

A classic example if this is the lane assist technology now fitted to many new cars. The intention is to physically prevent you from drifting unintentionally across motorway lanes and causing accidents due to inattention, distraction or drowsiness. A laudable aim, you may say.
But the unintended side effect is that in narrow country roads with centre markings such as the B4437 between Charlbury and Shipton-under-Wychwood the car is trying hard to steer you in to the verge the whole time: very distracting and actually quite dangerous.

Of course you can turn it off (although how long the manufacturers or insurers will continue to allow this is a big question) but you have to turn it off every time you start the car, and it’s buried several menus deep.
A hugely better option would be to allow for permanent disablement.
A wider interpretation of this suggestion is that all designers and decision makers should be forced to live with the consequences of their decisions.
And this goes especially for politicians, whose decisions and policies often have unintended consequences they are aware of and can live with because they only affect “other people”.