Effective road and traffic management

Written evidence from Donald Bowler (ETM 33)

For 25 years I worked in Local Government as an Environmental Health Officer, specialising in Environmental Protection (or Pollution Control). That included measurement of air pollution, the majority of which was due to traffic emissions. For the last four years I have been Climate Change Manager, one of my roles has been to try and reduce energy use and therefore carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

The factual information of which I want the Committee to be aware is :-

Poor Road and Traffic Management leads to :-

· Longer journey times

· Inefficiencies for businesses

· Increased accident rates, due to more close up stop start driving and impatience caused in drivers

· Reduced vehicle efficiency

· Reduced fuel efficiency, and hence greater CO2 emissions

Greater experience amongst drivers of European roads leads drivers to expect better practices, including :-

· Faster clear up accident scenes after dead or injured people have been removed from the scene

· Specifically allowing undertaking on the inside on motorways

· Allowing turning Left on a red light (equivalent of US practice of turning Right on a red)

Local Authorities tend to maintain the status quo where congestion is concerned, being disinclined to improve traffic flow so as to act as encouragement to drivers to change travel mode to public transport

Bus Lanes:-

· Delay other traffic

· Reduce road capacity for other users

· On occasions delay buses because the bus cannot reach the start of a bus lane, because traffic is held up by a reduction in road capacity ahead caused by the bus lane taking up a lane that could otherwise be available for other traffic

· Act as a punishment for all those who cannot take a bus, including those driving lorries, vans, delivery vehicles, those whose start and end journey points are not served by bus routes

For 29 years I have driven the same route of 16 miles to work and 16 miles from work, from the village where I live, to a town centre.

It is not practical to take public transport, as it would involve either a bus and a train, or two buses, with total journey time being 2½ hours. By car, it takes 25 minutes if I leave home at 6.50, which I usually do, but if I were to leave home at 08.00 it could take me 1¼ hours to do the same journey. There is a similar variation in time taken to drive home; depending on what time I set off from work. My fuel consumption on the journey that takes 25 minutes is consistent at 39 mpg; my fuel consumption on the journey of the same distance that takes 1¼ hours is around 24 mpg.

There is actually no good reason for this difference in time, because if the traffic lights on the journey were adjusted correctly, and made proper use of traffic sensors, most of the delay would disappear. A further problem in school term time is the activities of School Crossing Patrol staff, those that are based on Pedestrian Controlled Crossings delay road traffic by being in the road helping children (most of whom are accompanied by parents) after the lights have changed to green for the traffic.

We don’t make efficient use of our road infrastructure. Where there are specific bottlenecks, such as where the M1 at J19 and the A14 join, nothing has been done to improve the junction, it needing grade separation, thus meaning that those adjacent parts of the M1 and A14 are not used to their full capacity, being, in effect, very expensive parking areas. The A1 to the north of Sandy has some very sharp bends in it (radius = 150m) and a very dangerous roundabout at Black Cat, the latter being built only a few years ago, these are crying out to be improved and yet several years ago the A1M by Peterborough, which had a much better layout than near Sandy, was widened to 4 lanes each way. These are examples of the worst areas not being dealt with first.

Many new roundabouts are designed very badly, with unnatural lines through that the traffic must follow, leading to unnecessary slowing down.

February 2011