Newsnight last night - The case against traffic lights

Anyone see it?

The basic idea behind the report is to get rid of traffic lights in urban areas to reduce pollution caused by stop/start traffic. Vehicles will then slow down as a matter of course - as they do when lights are not working.

Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_YV3Cru7aE

Newsnight report - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ht/7187165.stm

Good idea? Or dangerous, given the sheer number of arseholes behind the wheel these days?

Seen what happens to roundabouts when they get too busy?

It's fine where traffic is light - they trialled this kind of idea of taking all traffic controls out 3-4 years back in a small town in the Netherlands (IIRC) and it worked quite well.

The real answer IMHO is intelligent traffic management systems, so you don't sit for 10 mins at a red light looking at an empty road crossing yours and better junction design, but that costs money.

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"Force has no place where there is need of skill" Herodotus 450BC

North America has a system called '4 ways' at crossroads I think where the first vehicle there has right of way. This works fine in rural area I think but I just can't see it working at say Hammersmith One Way at 8.30 in the morning. It'd just be gridlock..... Oh - hang on- it is anyway

I can't believe I just read this in a BBC news article:

'To break the priority streams of traffic, lights are "needed".

The rules turn our roads into danger zones where we have to fight for gaps and green time. Over the years they have helped kill more people than died in two world wars.'

Journalistic hype at its very worst. Does the writer have any conception of how many people died in the two World Wars?

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What, me worry?

A good idea where traffic is light enough, but as pointed out it wont work in very heavy traffic, the roundabout example being a classic.

What I object to is the stupid three way lights we've got in Newport now, some of the cross roads have three independant periods of green light; main road has go followed by filter for right turners (I'm classing this as one period), then one of the roads over the main road gets green for straight ahead and left or right turning traffic, next the opposite road gets its green phase.

Considering how few people actually want to turn right, a short right turn filter period, as per the 'main' road would waste a lot less time and petrol.

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If beer is so bad for brain cells, why does my brain allow me to drink so much of it?

The traffic lights failed at the top of a major road into my local market town Usually there is a long delay as traffic sits at the lights as they sequence for all three roads that meet (in a Y shape) and it does look like a 'difficult' junction. However, when the lights had failed, the traffic flowed more smoothly, people seemed to take time to look and carefully cross the junction in the directions they wanted to go, there were no accidents and there were no delays at the lights.

A week later they were fixed, back to waits and delays.....

I wonder what would happen when people got used to them being out of order?

Survival of the bravest?

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"Force has no place where there is need of skill" Herodotus 450BC

Dunno. They were out for a week and it didn't appear to me to be like that and I went through them at least twice a day - each way.

But non-intelligent systems are surely feasable? There are a couple of sets of lights on my journey to work (roundabouts only) that only start working on peak times. No intelligence required just a simple programme and a few blokes with clipboards to measure the traffic to find out what time it is needed.

Could that time of thing not be easily extended? Surely simple programming like that is simple to do?

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TALK TO ME OR THE BUNNY GETS IT!

Entirely different examples, but possibly showing the same characteristics.

On motorways, where they paint those chevrons on. When I first was on the mways with them, people were using them to keep their distance. Now the majority ignore them.

Whenever yellow boxes are painted a junctions, people respect them for a couple of weeks, and then they seem to get ignored.

To me, examples of human nature when driving. All it takes is a few impatient selfish peeps to start taking risks and then the whoel thing falls apart.

Guess it is impossible to know for sure, unless somebody had the guts to try it.

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TALK TO ME OR THE BUNNY GETS IT!

I know a couple of sets that seem to work well, but they are on roundabouts where there is another method of determining priority.

I suspect that if you put them on traffic lights on ordinary crossroads, you'd get drivers from both directions assuming priority and colliding in the middle - I don't know for sure and am speculating!

It might be worth pointing out that 20 years ago the French used to have the majority of traffic lights working peak hours only - outside that period you got a flashing yellow light to remind you there was a junction and you had to sort it out for yourself. I can't actually remember the last time I saw one of those in action. You have to ask why - were they seen as a high accident risk?

I think that's part of our national persona if there is such a thing. I suspect it would work in Germany for instance, where they tend to follow the rules.

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"Force has no place where there is need of skill" Herodotus 450BC

I think the Dutch still have the off peak orange flashing light. It seems/seemed to work well too.

Anyone care to confirm this.

I think part of the problem may lie with trends that take place in many planning environments. Organisations fall into the trap of one solution for all rather than looking at things on a case by case basis. On, for example, lightly used roads or roundabouts that are quiet for 18+ hours a day, there is no need for lights to be present (or operational). Flexibility and pragmatism is what is required.

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Against that you have to balance design that is predictable and self-explanatory... unusual traffic arrangements catch people out - there's a nasty bit of the southern bypass round Oxford where three roundabouts just a few hundred yards apart have three different lane arrangements:

If you look at this one

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl...&t=k&z=18&om=0

The two lanes going West-East are clearly marked with the inside lane for a left turn and the OUTSIDE lane splits into two AHEAD lanes to follow the bypass to the second exit (technically a right turn!).

Carry on a few hundred yards and you get to this one

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl...&t=k&z=18&om=0

Now you have two lanes at the island with no markings. So some people go straight on from the left hand lane to the 2nd exit superstore, whilst some people turn left 1st exit carrying on around the bypass from the right hand lane! EEK!!

Carry on another half a mile or so up the bypass
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl...&t=k&z=19&om=0

You'll see that you've again got two lanes splitting into three but this time, it's the INSIDE lane that divides into a left turn lane and a straight ahead lane, which then leads into one of those horrible "guided lane" roundabouts, and they haven't even got the markings right - note how the left turn approach lane isn't hatched off to the left at all, but actually continues straight ahead into the furthest left "lane"... if you've started in the middle lane are you supposed to move to the left after passing the first exit? Or stay where you are? If you've approached in the right hand lane to go straight on, you're fed into a "lane" round the island marked for a right turn.

The result for people who don't know the area is always hesitation as they try to figure out where to be, and impatience from the locals as they dive for the gaps! It took me half a dozen runs through it to work out where the markings were and where I was supposed to go. Fortunately, most of the through traffic goes north about Oxford or I'm sure there would be far more accidents on this stretch.

I've got a road design pamphlet somewhere that says something like "good road design should be capable of being read like a book". This stretch is all greek!

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The dull copyright bit - feel free to nick it for personal use. If you want to reprint it for your club, I'd like a mention as author. Otherwise hands-off. Full terms
"Force has no place where there is need of skill" Herodotus 450BC

I agree with you there, but I'm not talking about unusual road layouts in this case, but specifically at the use of traffic lights and where/when is approriate. From my own experience, a number of roundabouts had lights on them that only used to be in use at peak times, but now they are on at all times. That's the sort of thing I mean. As an example, I often travel early in the morning and it takes a lot longer than it should to get through towns as the traffic lights cycle through their phases regardless of the traffic actually on the road.

My computer is unable to open the links you have posted so I can't respond directly to those at the moment, I'm afraid.

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