Traffic Reduction Scheme Lengthens Journey Times
Thursday, 18. April 2019
Auto Express has highlighted deficiencies in the £317 million traffic reduction scheme that has had the reverse effect in some areas.
The Government-owned organisation funded a total of 119 schemes across the UK between 2012/13 and 2014/15, of which 89 per cent were aimed at relieving congestion during specific time periods. It should be noted that traffic jams cost the UK economy £8 billion last year.
Although this aim was achieved during the targeted times, it resulted in worse congestion at other times of day, which Highways England said “outweighed” the benefits.
Increased journey times during off-peak periods caused economic costs of £5.6m during the first year of the programme, while shorter journeys at peak times resulted in a benefit of £5.1m.
One of the main reasons seen for the increase in congestion during off-peak times was the introduction of new sets of traffic lights.
The analysis comes from a newly published Highways England report, for which the organisation evaluated 54 of the 119 schemes to see what the results were for their first year of operation.
The report concluded that, in future, such programmes need to “better consider how to mitigate the downsides while maintaining the upsides”.
Nicholas Lyes, head of roads policy at the RAC, described the report’s findings as “very disappointing”.
“While congestion has been reduced at peak times of the day, unfortunately, many schemes have seen increased traffic at off-peak periods, mostly due to traffic lights being introduced”, he said.
“Luckily, it seems as though there are some simple steps that can be taken to improve the worst of these new off-peak traffic flow issues, such as changing signals to work part-time instead of full-time.”
He added: “It is also important to realise that this work was not just about reducing congestion and that many schemes have seen small reductions in the number of road casualties.”
Personally, I find it absurd to come up with traffic calming schemes during rush hours but end up with journey times being lengthened at all other times. Also, the report into the schemes found that of the 54 assessed by Highways England, 20 were found to have decreased driver safety.
That is simply not good enough. According to latest figures from the EU we have the safest roads in Europe with 28 road traffic fatalities per million inhabitants. I would say that this is more as a result of luck than judgement.
Our roads are still in an appalling state, we are tinkering around the edges when it comes to congestion, we need new roads, and by fiddling around the way we have been those statistics will start to move in the wrong direction. By Graham Hill
