Temporary lanes give jams cold shoulder

18 October 2006

The just-opened peak-time hard shoulder running stretch of the M42 has resulted in a 20% decrease in journey times on Friday afternoons, the most congested time of the week, the Highways Agency reported at last week’s World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS).
However, a spokesman told Surveyor that the figures were based on ‘very early’ data, and provided only an initial indication of the impact of the M42 Active Traffic Management scheme.
The Freight Transport Association said its members also reported ‘slight improvements in journey time’, with the opening of the hard shoulder at peak times, leading to an improvement in capacity.
However, FTA members said the improvement in journey times along the AIM stretch of the M42 was eradicated when approaching junctions 10-11 northbound, ‘where commercial vehicles over 7.5t are subject to an overtaking ban’.
Meanwhile, other announcements at the ITS World Congress saw the European Commission admitting delays in its plans for all new vehicles to carry ‘eCall’ crash alert systems to guide emergency vehicles from 2009 – blaming lack of urgency among member states.
At the same time, it reported that technical and contractual work was on schedule for its planned European Electronic Tolling Service, due for launch in 2010. This would enable drivers to pay automatically for using charged highways across the EU, including those introduced under UK road-pricing schemes, by installing a single on-board unit.

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