£800,000 traffic lights turned off and traffic flow improves.

tomstickland

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/homepage/Portishead-traffic-lights-set-stay-trial/article-1394854-detail/article.html

Portishead's Cabstand traffic lights will stay turned off when the four-week switch-off trial ends.

The trial started on September 14 and so far there have been no accidents, and traffic flow through the town has greatly improved.

The idea to switch the lights off followed similar successful trials in Sweden and London, where councils had turned off signals at traffic-clogged junctions.

Personally I hate the initiative robbing, anti social nature of traffic lights and find this result to be very encouraging.

Tally-Ho_2

Perhaps that article needs to be sent to Scarborough Council.

Welcome to Scarborough - The home of the Traffic Light!!

Tally

moonrakerz

This is a well known phenomenon, but, hey, your local council has all that money (of yours !) to spend and traffic lights are always a highly visible way of making the motoring public think that they are looking after your interests.

flyingscotno1

Problem is there are limited number of situations that it works in- yes some places can be without traffic lights, but other junctions are chaotic without them. Far too simple to simply remove them a hope for the best! Whilst there are some places that don't really need them I know loads of places that shouldn't have them and loads that do not! Some lights are also installed to keep traffic regulated and moving in lumps rather than broken up for efficency.

Near me they put traffic lights on a roundabout- without fail this roundabout queued back from 4pm to 6pm for a good 1/2 mile- sit edging up for 10 minutes and it was back to the next roundabout- yet since the lights have gone in queue is now 2-3 cars long.

AdrianHi

Basingstoke, renowned for it's roundabouts has an absolutely classic set of traffic lights for managing peak traffic flow.
When traffic flow is modest they work OK. It's a large roundabout, vehicles are stopped at various points on the roudabout for traffic from other entrances to get through.
When traffic volumes increase those same traffic lights keep the same behaviour and trap vehicles on the roudabout which quickliy backs up all the way round and then nobody can move at all.
Totally mental.

vikingaero

One of the junctions I use a lot is J4 on the M20 which is traffic light controlled.

When the lights break down the traffic flow is wonderful - everything flows smoothly. When the lights are on it's PITA, heavy queues etc.

It's all pretty galling to go through at 1am and have to stop at every set of lights with no opposing traffic.

The Heathrow junction/exit on the M4 has part time lights. If a busy junction like this can work part time then why can't any other traffic light controlled junction?

plane_boy2000

Impressed that this made MSE! I live there and it used to be junctions with give way lines, then our stupid council decided that due to increased traffic flow we needed lights..... The sequencing was way off and the lights created tail backs. There are also a number of residential roads that run parallel to the lights that have now become rat runs.

I can vouch for the improved trafic flow - I have not had to wait once since they turned them off, and its nice to see that the locals are so pleased to have them off that they are stopping to let the peds cross the road now the pelican crossings are out of action.

harveybobbles

The traffic lights at Asda Westbrook, Warrington are a joke! As are the ones at LA Bowl which were built and never turned on for 2 years as they knew they'd made a balls up!

tomstickland

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/homepage/Time-switch-Bristol-area-s-traffic-lights/article-1422723-detail/article.html

Councils in the Bristol area have gone traffic-light crazy.
The city and its surrounding areas seem to be over-run with time-wasting and unnecessary stops for motorists.
Today, the Bristol Evening Post has a simple message for our councils – most of those lights are not necessary at off-peak times and many are not needed at all.

I have to say that I hate traffic lights with a passion. They are symptomatic of a control freak "it will be chaos unless we dumb everything down" attitude. Sitting at red lights at 2am whilst the roads are empty is frustration.
Moreover, there is an argument that presenting driver's with more work to do, such as looking at a crossing, actually makes them behave more carefully.

plane_boy2000

Good news for us residents of Portishead! Given the success of the tril they have now decided to turn off more sets of lights frther down the road.

I susspect that someone could be on to a vote winner here!

ZootHornRollo

there is a junction near our house. Basically its a flyover crossing a dual carriageway, a slip road on and off for each direction. Used mainly be traffic for the village or driving through the village.

The traffic coming from edinburgh was always pretty bad at most times of day and usually backed up. They put lights on this side of the junction and left the rest alone. It worked great. traffic in and out of the village was slightly hampered but traffic from edinburgh leaving the A1 flowed much better. big improvement.

So the council decided to put light on the other side which had absolutely no issues - traffic coming from the south leaving the A1 and cars from the village joining the A1. It was a disaster. There was never a problem to beging with but the lights caused chaos. Cars backed up, obstructing the traffic leaving the A1 from edinburgh. Cars couldn't get off the A1 in either direction.

After 3 days the lights were shut off, had 'not in use' covers put over them and they have stayed that way for years now.