Effective road and traffic management

Written evidence from Martin Cassini (ETM 15)

We complain about the traffic and blame other drivers, but could it be traffic controls that are the problem? Who is the better judge of when, or how fast to go - you and me at the time and the place, or lights and limits fixed by absent regulators? Is it reasonable to put the onus for road safety on children, or should it be the other way round? Accidents are not accidents - they are events contrived by the rules and design of the road.

I'm a TV producer, traffic writer and campaigner for traffic system reform. My coherent set of proposals will cut congestion and emissions, and make roads safe. I deplore most interventionist traffic management, which in my view is based on a fatal flaw and treats the symptoms but never the cause of our road safety and congestion problems. I'm also a scathing critic of councils' failure to act [1] . Last year I was a keynote speaker at a traffic conference, sharing the stage with Chief Operating Officer of TfL and Director of the Highways Agency. I could give you a version of my presentation which includes a two-part video, linked at the photos below. Part 1 explains the rationale and includes clips from my Newsnight report; [2] Part 2 shows before-and-after our traffic lights-off trial in Portishead. [3]

My 2008 Newsnight report called for trials to test the idea that we are better off left to our own cooperative devices rather than forced to obey a flawed system of vexatious traffic control. [4] The current system is a metaphor for disenfranchisement. My reforms, by restoring individual responsibility (and promoting the common good), amount to a metaphor for the Big Society. My campaign is pro-choice, pro-planet, but not anti-car. It is anti high-cost, counterproductive regulation. At multi-lane junctions at peak times, signals might remain necessary, but controls that usurp our judgement and dictate our behaviour should be used as a last resort, not the first. In 2009 I instigated a lights-off trial in Portishead which went permanent after journey times fell by over half with no loss of safety, despite greater numbers now using the free-flowing junctions. [5]

On the website below are links to some of my articles, e.g. Kind Cuts, [6] which gives an idea of the scale of the painless spending cuts that could be achieved from traffic system reform.

· the extent to which the Government and local authorities should intervene to alleviate congestion and the best means of doing so

Interventionist measures are part of the problem, not the solution. The culture of intolerance stems from artificial priority - an engineering model. The sustainable solution lies in equality - a social model.

· the extent to which road user culture and behaviour undermines effective traffic management, including the relevance to today’s road users of the Highway Code

You have this the wrong way round; it's traffic (mis)management which undermines cooperative culture and sociable behaviour.

·  intelligent traffic management schemes, such as the scheme which has operated on the M42, and their impact on congestion and journey times

I question the use of the word "intelligent" in relation to traffic management. Volume of traffic can be a drama. Volume + controls = crisis.

Since 2004, TfL resisted my calls for trials, though they changed their tune in April 2009, when Westminster agreed to a series of trials after seeing my video, "The case for a no-lights trial". In 2008, the GLA/Mayor turned down our trial proposals, and now are presenting some of the ideas as their own. But they fail to communicate (or understand) the wider context, hence the opposition from vulnerable road-user groups. Central to my thesis is that deregulation is not enough on its own. Other essential steps include culture change, legal reform and roadway redesign.

January 2011