Conclusions and recommendations
1. The Agency has shown a lack of leadership
and urgency in tackling congestion on England's roads. It
has been inhibited by a risk averse culture, and so has fallen
behind other leading countries in adopting traffic management
measures. The Agency should learn more readily from the successful
experiences of others, and become more innovative in tackling
congestion than through new road building.
2. Where the Agency has trialled traffic management
measures such as variable speed limits, ramp metering and dedicated
lanes, pilots have been poorly designed and managed, leading to
inconclusive results. The Agency should
design pilots with clear objectives, budgets and timescales; choose
suitable sites unaffected by other factors; and establish adequate
data collection procedures prior to and during the trial; monitor
progress regularly; and evaluate the outcome quickly to enable
faster roll out if appropriate.
3. The Agency has done little to tackle the
problems caused by lorries overtaking at slow speeds and on inclines
even though they are a significant cause of congestion on motorways
and dual carriageways. Lane restrictions
and overtaking bans on inclines are possible mitigating actions.
The Agency should also manage its relationships with interest
groups such as motoring organisations and freight transport groups,
so as not to give their views on tackling congestion undue weight
relative to those of motorists in general.
4. Other poor behaviour by motorists such
as occupying the middle lane unnecessarily or driving too close
to the car in front causes congestion and accidents.
The Agency should work more closely with local police forces to
consider how their respective activities could be better co-ordinated
to influence driver behaviour more effectively.
5. The Agency should provide drivers with
accessible real time information at the roadside to help them
avoid congested areas of the network.
The Agency has put too much emphasis on information being available
on the television, radio or the web whereas the motorist needs
better information at the roadside. Message signs are not up-to-date
and do not give motorists any indication of how long it would
take to clear sections of congested roads, or for motorists to
reach their destinations. Nor are motorists warned against joining
a motorway if it is at a standstill.
6. The Agency should use the significant information
flows available at the new National Traffic Control Centre to
provide motorists with more comprehensive and comprehensible messages
on the location of congestion, impact on journey times and alternative
routes.
7. The Agency should provide information to
motorists at roadworks to explain the retention of speed and lane
restrictions where the sites are not being actively worked on.
8. The Agency expects to reduce the time taken
to clear motorways after a major accident or incident, currently
around 5.5 hours on average, through its new Traffic Officer role.
The police will retain responsibility for investigating the incident,
whereas the Agency will have responsibility for getting the traffic
moving again as quickly as possible. The Agency should set targets,
depending on the severity of incidents and accidents, for the
time it should take its new traffic officers to clear motorways
after the emergency services have completed their work.
9. Currently the Agency adopts the same cost
benefit techniques to appraise all projects whether new roads
builds, smaller construction projects or traffic management measures.
The Agency should consider with the Treasury whether evaluations
of traffic management measures should place more emphasis on the
broader case for adopting them on the network rather than on producing
and justifying business cases for each individual site where the
measure might be appropriate.
10. The Agency has not aligned its technology
strategy with its strategy for building new roads and widening
existing ones, with the result that inappropriate and potentially
costly decisions have been made. The Agency
started to install inappropriate signage technology in the South
East through a decision to upgrade signs, but not to implement
immediately the most sophisticated technology already being used
in some areas in the North. This approach would have cost some
£64 million more than phased introduction of the better technology
and the Agency subsequently reversed its decision.
11. The Agency should target traffic management
measures at the most congested parts of the network across the
country as a whole rather than by region.
Signage technology in the South East, for example, has fallen
behind other regions even though the South East has some of the
most heavily congested routes.
12. The Agency did not take advantage of the
introduction of the Licensing Act 2003 to become a body to be
consulted when promoters of events such as sporting or entertainment
events apply to local authorities for a licence.
As a result, it has not been well informed about likely traffic
congestion arising from such events, and so has not been well
prepared to deal with it. The Agency should take steps to become
such a body.
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