Transport Cafe visits Traffic Scotland & England to peep into Future and TodayRoad Traffic is on the increase, traffic Jams are with us every day, given that we don’t have the Star Trek Voyager ability to de-materialise and re-appear at the other side of the Jam what can we do.
We can and do build more and better roads; this is an ongoing programme, no matter what government is in office. Sometimes we create traffic Jams when we modernise roads or build tram ways on our streets, but again we have little choice, the work must go on as efficiently, safely, and as quickly as possible
Ok! We all know the above,,, but what comes next,,, the answer is road traffic control advice and information.
If I start with Scotland’s Traffic Control Centre, the first words I can say about Traffic Scotland after a visit to their head quarters is that those involved have dedicated enthusiasm and a vision of the future. The Technology is there and arriving, some is operational. Strictly speaking Scotland does not have Regional Centres like England – Scotlands control centre in Glasgow does collate information from regional offices, operating companies, police, etc in an attempt to be a ‘one stop shop’ for accurate , up to date traffic information. I have no doubt that to a degree which cannot be avoided it will be a learning curve, but with the willingness on all side to make progress things will happen for the benefit of us all.
The consultant in charge of this development was very aware of the task, very motivated, and very qualified, I was impressed and I pay tribute to his appreciation of what is required. An important point about Traffic Scotland is that all the information is available to the public via their Internet website. England does have a website, well TWO actually, both doing the same job, well sort of, but then England seems to be a shambles of an organisation, the technology is there, the controllers are there and keen, but the management is errrrrrrrr! quite different from Scotland. Oh! And if the public want "perhaps" reliable information you have to pay for some of it, so sorry mate you get what they think will keep you happy, and as I found its not reliable information as is Scotland’s.
On Thursday the 13th April 2006, there was an blockage on the M6 in the later afternoon (it may well have been also before that). I was requested to look on the Internet to see if the M6 was clear between Manchester and Preston. The coloured lines said that the section in question from the M61 intersection had MODERATE delays, however the pop up detailed information said they were SEVERE. Such information is NONE INFORMATION and about as much use as a truck full of smoked kippers dumped on your doorstep on a hot summers day! I mean imagine you yourself look on the internet as I did for information, and see conflicting reports about the same hold-up on the same page, how does this help, and what notice are you inclined to take of what is available to you in the future,,, I mean its really not a runner is it!
The on line road traffic report board at Corley services on Tuesday 11th at 21.30hrs April 2006 said there were no delays on motorways, it actually said CLEAR. After reading this I proceeded up the M6 to find the matrix (VMS) boards saying long delays, on arrival at the southbound M5 turn off I could see miles of stationary traffic on this then quiet motorway. The taxpayer is spending millions of pounds and then this is the result passed to the public via information board at Corley services. Personally I think its scandalous, This Organisation on the English side has fine buildings, lots of personal and equipment, yet it is delivering garbled information that looks pretty! The VMS boards on the Internet which are supposed to be reflections of their counterparts on the actual motorway can be quite different because they are not tied to each other,,, again this is useless, its worse than NOTHING! .
When I visited the traffic England control centre I asked them why the words on the VMS boards on the motorway could be different from that which their Internet website says they are,,, they said they wouldn’t be,,, I replied that they often were,, and with little sampling I often found them to be different,,, they looked puzzled and said they wouldn't be. No one technical was available to answer such questions. Now I have no wish to knock the traffic control system, I think it’s a wonderful project and we need it very badly, I can live with things not being perfect, I can live with people making errors, after all none of us is perfect we all make mistakes,,, but here we have a problem,,, denial,,, and on my few samples errors in information are frequent,,, I would make the "Analogous" point that if you find out that a chap tells porkpies more than once or twice,,,, what notice will you take of him,,, in this matter the traffic information for England is very very contradictory and my unavoidable impression after following it over some months is that attention to detail is a laugh. Another example is a delay of 55 minutes on a motorway is called moderate and severe depending which bit you read, now we don’t need such explanations if we are told that you will be delayed for 55 minutes between for example junctions one and two, we have the best information type,,, but,,,,,, WHOOPS!!!!!!!!! in the space of a second the information would go from 55 minutes to a big fat ZERO MINUTES.
Now imagine you are a transport manager, HGV driver, white van man or any businessman/woman en-route to that destination and you look on the English website for information,,,, as you look away the 55 minutes goes to ZERO!!!! but you have looked away and are already planning another route to avoid the none existent 55 minute delay,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, now also consider that this organisation presents this information as authoritative data, which it does,,, what does this leave you thinking!!! Especially if you find out this was the case after re-routing,,, with all the frustration of town and urban traffic lights,,, lets say this happens again!!!!!!!!!!!! can any reader honestly tell me they will bother to take any notice of the traffic information for England,,, perhaps the paid for information is good information, just perhaps,,, and the website data has scant attention paid to it with some motivation for the same! well we cant look at cameras as the rest of the uk can,,, England’s traffic control doesn’t give us this facility,,, it does give or sell this facility to the radio stations, who appear on air from time to time and give traffic reports,,, and in this regard I can tell you that these do not need to correlate with the website data at that given time. For example a driver can be telling me that a radio station is giving out serious hold up reports, so I check the website and it says clear,,,,,,,,,,,,, where do we go from here,,,,,,,,,,,,, I suggest you would be better to PHONE A FRIEND,,,,, DONT RELY ON THE RADIO OR ENGLANDS TRAFFIC REPORTS,,,,, I will not venture into the radio stations reports as they get their info I assume from the same source, perhaps they are out of sync with reality, perhaps the person who checks this is on a tea break,,, whatever it can be WRONG! ALL THIS IS MY HONEST FINDINGS,,,,, coupled with much hard evidence just in case denial is forthcoming.
I personally take little notice of England’s Traffic control website. Some facts will be correct and you may be lucky,,, but with regards to when roads are blocked or clear,,, my advice is don’t trust them,,, find out another way if you can,,, use a CB radio or phone a friend,,, road cameras are not available to the public in England to do this,, as they are in the rest of the Uk,,, because they probably really want to sell you that information,,, why are they so secretive, defensive, not willing to communicate when genuine concerns have been raised. The situation today is that their website asks for feedback, but doesn’t want my questions, and also in my case doesn’t answer follow up mails after a firm promise to do so!
Previous versions of road traffic information websites showed traffic flow at points on motorways, also traffic type, provided the user has a chart to see how this references to real time traffic density, that is what a driver calls quite or busy then such information is good,,,,,,,,, it means you and I can see dependable information, it means we don’t have to depend on information fed to us which as I write is often not true or accurate, whichever wording you prefer. This method was stopped some time back in about 2004 for the bad situation we have today.
After a visit to Both England’s and Scotland’s traffic control centres it was obvious that Scotland’s management knows where it is going and has reached some good objectives, England’s traffic control management which I visited after I had made complaints over some months, sounded like Humphrey in the Yes Minister series, full of defensive words that went nowhere. No vision of the future was expanded. It was a struggle to see where taxpayer’s money was being spent. They were very polite but it really ended there. It was as if paranoia had gripped them. Photographs could not to be taken of the control room. The civil servant in charge said that a professional photographer had been paid to take all the photographs that were needed, and that they would be made available to me. When they arrived (I think there were two) they were really terrible, I would not dream of putting them on the site, quite frankly granny with her throw away holiday snap camera could have done much much better, and I mean that seriously,,, so we have a situation where tax payers money has been spent and wasted, or porky pies are being told, and for what reason.
I did very gently ask for the original photographs as the quality was poor, I then had an excuse given that they were in London. Now we are talking digital here,, and all you reading this will be aware that it doesn’t matter if they are in Victoria Australia or next door, its all the same. I regret to say no photographs arrived. This was the sort of shut doors; pull down the screens paranoia that I mentioned before. I naturally assume they have a lot to hide in the organisation regards management, why else would such paranoia prevail over what could be considered a perfectly normal requirement. I believe there are big problems in the organisation and they are worried sick about any probing. In Scotland road cameras are available on the Traffic Scotland website allowing transport managers and business people or their office to check traffic flow real time without relying on a figure presented on the screen, this is very helpful when fog is about or thought to be about. This also often means that a driver calls his wife and asks her to check a certain route on the internet for him,, also pensioner Bill and his wife want to avoid rush hour traffic so they look at the traffic forecast. Good Traffic information makes calm and relaxed drivers who know they will get there on time, no worries, let me give you an example from Scotland.
Arriving on the outskirts of Glasgow to make an appointment with Traffic Scotland’s control centre in an area I was not familiar with, I approached along the M74 followed by the M8, which flows through Glasgow city centre. I had the destination area in mind and the junction number for turning off, as I approached on the outskirts there was a DOT MATRIX SIGN saying that current travel time to certain destinations was as follows,,, it then gave the time in minutes, this was really goods news, I relaxed knowing I would have no problems,,, of course if there had been a hold up I would have been able to re-route at least not getting caught,,, or if traffic were heavy I would know it was just congestion and the time would show a little longer, again I could relax knowing all was well and a time map had been given to me as an extra which I did not expect to get, full marks to Traffic Scotland. The beauty about being told how long it will take to reach a certain destination, is that if there is congestion the time to the destination will still be accurate, because the control centre can see the whole picture, this makes relaxed drivers, less accidents, and I give this type of information full marks, it’s the way of the future which is starting in Scotland.
Roads throughout the UK have sensors built into the road, they monitor traffic flow, weight or size, this is a massive project with all sensors feeding into a computer programme that looks at the data presented. It can compare this with what it knows it should expect for the time of day and day of week. The system is set to trigger an alarm to a traffic control centre controller if the traffic flow is abnormal. The template of what is normal can be and is updated and the process is I am sure ongoing, as time passes it gets smarter!
The problem here for road users is that in a area like Birmingham and the M6, congestion can be normal, stationary traffic can be normal, but not every driver knows the pattern in the same way as the software that monitors traffic flow. Thus a driver seeing congestion signs on the M6 matrix displays (VMS) does not know if that is normal especially when the vehicles actually stop which they often do. This is where Scotland’s time information is good, everybody, but everybody, not just the controllers, not just the software, not just the regular drivers in the patch, everybody is in the picture and an obvious increase of relaxed drivers must flow from this information, again less accidents, fewer roads closed due to a scene of crime possibility after an accident. !
Back to Scotland again, there are the regional offices that look after the local areas or off trunk road situations, towns etc. The national centre looks at motorways and trunk roads. Working together is vital and here we meet another system, the police who have cameras and sensor systems doing a different job,, but much of the time they could work together, each having their own priority. Scene of crime is a problem after an accident involving injury, and here we see motorways and trunk roads closed for hours, simply because its a possible crime scene. I use the word simply to make the point that the road could be opened very quickly quite often, but the police for their administrative reasons stated keep it closed. The cost to the nation is staggering, and it will, or must become evident that this is not acceptable,, methods should be found to get the data required by modern methods, whatever the defence, closing a main road for hours on end must not be an option, the cost is to great for the nation.
How good are these traffic control offices at doing their difficult job, who is in charge of them, engineers and technicians or civil servants. Who controls the development? Are those responsible open to comments, or are they defensive and introvert. This is important again for all of us as we try and move this control system forward. I can say from my experience to Traffic Scotland they are 100% open and keenly looking to do all they can and listen to all possibilities. I regret that England is not the same in this respect. My experience after a visit to England’s Traffic control centre was the opposite from Scotland. They are defensive, unhelpful, and communication with them on matters was reduced to zero. Civil servants or government officials seem to be in control rather than experienced engineers, this means that those in the control centre doing the job are constrained. No matter how good they are if the planning, and or system has problems their hands are tied. Matrix or VMS boards on motorways may inform you,, “Diversion at Junc 1”. The truth is there is not a diversion at junction one. They are or were referring to what happens if you turn off the motorway on to a certain A or B road, which they were not giving information about. They should have used for example, “A38 closed west bound”, that has some meaning and is 100% better because we then know the road we are on is not closed. Of course if you were or are a regular driver and have experience of such wording, and have grown to be aware of what they really mean you are ok to a degree,, but these is no excuse for ambiguity.
Who decides what wording to post on these English VMS signs (matrix boards), well its not the control centre operators, its those at the top who have a select group sit down and decide what can and what cannot be said, they then compose a list and the operators must only use the words available on the list. We have a bad group think situation here of people wanting to agree with each other, when we need individual minds, I wont go further than that.
We now have to consider what type of people grouped together actually commissioned the use of "Diversion Junction ?" when the motorway is actually not diverted.
[Please remember here that if you were driving down the A303 and a main sign on the road said "Diversion at A30 Intersection" you would presume correctly that the A303 was diverted]
As I write this they may have corrected this,,, but that’s not the point,,, if they are so thinking as to have commissioned this error, what can be thought of their ability to continue in charge of this very important project, after all they are supposed to be top management, well adjusted people, who had a group meeting, which would have cost the state (taxpayer) a fortune, just to arrive at a terrible failure to understand the English language. Some of them could well be on an annual salary of £40,000 £70,000 and much more plus a great pension scheme, I wonder if they have a petrol hungry or uneconomic vehicle going with the job. Scotland on the other hand does seem to have the grasp of the task, those responsible are very keen and able to take the system forward, and they are open to appreciation. For example in Glasgow the traffic lights are controlled by the control centre if so required,,, for example if the emergency services call out a fire engine, the route for the engine is laid in for the driver and traffic controllers, the control room monitors the progress of the fire engine and the traffic lights are turned to green for the engine as it proceeds to the emergency, never needing to cross a red light,,, excellent stuff, this saves lives not only by the engine arriving sooner, but, no emergency stops by other vehicles to allow the engine to go over red lights. First class stuff by Scotland, this will no doubt extend into all towns and cities as time goes by.
The whole system will by the time we get ten years down the road be quite different. Let me use my crystal ball a little. There will be no need for matrix signs on roads; all vehicles will have Sat Nav plus systems in their vehicles. Details of problems will be relayed to the vehicle and an audio link will inform the driver of qualified events on the road ahead. For example a HGV or white van man off to Exeter from Inverness will be informed of all that concerns him/her for the route he has planned in. His equipment will simply grab the data applicable and discount any other. It will also be able to transpond (talk back) like an aircraft, passing information back to the control centre either via sat link or more often mobile phone networks. Transponding will be limited at first but will gradually spread to ordinary vehicles if they wish it,,, after all we all help each other. Transponding simply means your vehicle can talk back to base regarding road conditions. As an example let us take air temperature. Every car will be able to monitor outside temperature,, this information can be passed back to the base/control centre,,,, in effect those on the internet and whoever else wants that information has an essentially analogue picture of the temperature all over Britain at any moment in time. What use is this,,, I am sure there are many uses not apparent yet,,, just as the American space effort essentially gave us the microprocessor and much more,,, today the whole world is a different place with phenomenal ability compared to pre microprocessor,,, but we didn’t know then what it would do completely.
Road traffic control can learn much from air traffic control, but the needs of ground control are massive in comparison. Scotland has started to move ahead, understanding what it needs to do, communications between the traffic control centre heads and the police are in progress, looking for a way ahead, it will take time for them to assist each other but they have taken that step with deep enthusiasm, I am not yet sure about England or the English system. They have more to do, but, what Scotland are doing England could also do,, there is more of it,,, but the plans can be laid in principle,,, being updated as time goes by.
Satelite Navigation systems in car for the future.
Its knocking off time and the factories and offices and shops start to outpour staff, some of them cant drive away from the place of work fast enough,,, some actually feed onto the motorways,,, down the slip road, then across the three motorway lanes or more, causing brakes to go from traffic progressing normally down the motorway,,, dodging from lane to lane, couldn’t care less attitudes,,, self self self all the way home, if they get there, some don’t! Friday night north of Birmingham on the M6 you can be sure there will be an accident as people knock off work,, the emergency services know this,, if they want to kill themselves fine I supose, but not others in the process, and then close the road for hours whilst society via the police look at a possible crime scene.
Driving will be controlled in the future, it will have to be, the individual car will be able to record and transpond violent driving to a data base, the in-car system will be able to tell you how you drive, accelerate too fast always, brake fiercely too much, regularly go round bends too fast, every type of driving will be able to be recorded, (errr that means your speed also) driving trends however will be more important and will be looked at for insurance purposes, if you drive badly all the time you pay much more.
Logs of your driving type will be able to be used in your defence if an accident takes place. Vehicles with different drivers will log on to the vehicle, and their driving data will be gathered to a central point. Vehicles on the road without their systems switched on will be detected and the required officers of the law alerted. Miles per gallon or litre as per your driving type will be displayed in your car, and how long your brake pads and tyres will last if you drive like your type trend. It will also show the effect of any instances of driving types. In fact there is just about nothing that cannot be known if so desired, which is where we bump into politics and the political will. But politics at its worst eventually it will happen, young drivers today will experience all that I have mentioned above before they get to pensioner age.
Actually achieving this will not happen overnight, it will be gradual, initially the ability to transpond all the data will be limited and available only for the individual in the car, and nothing will be passed on to any outside body. As this system becomes established and reliable an appropriate moment will appear, just after a bad road accident for example that has the nations attention. The minister whoever he or she is will pass through parliament a bit of legislation enabling a trial period over say 8 weeks, with 4 actual weeks (week on week off) where all vehicles will transpond their data to memory storage points ready for interrogation if required, or perhaps it will all be analysed at once and results given out. The results of this I suggest will be made public at once, everybody will be able to see that road traffic accidents will drop to near zero by the end of the trial,,,,
It does not take a crystal ball to see that the removal of Transponding would cause thousands of people to be killed or injured each day/week, those who lost loved ones or with serious injuries would be shouting for the permanent introduction of Transponding from vehicles, the press would be unable to lobby for any faction who wanted essentially the freedom to have masses of people killed each year, they would have to agree that Transponding was so effective that its need was overwhelming.
Lets go a little farther,,, now the need for vehicles to accelerate fast would disappear, comfort and facility would appear at the top of a vehicles requirements. Swishy go fast design would disappear, instead new concepts would appear, more futuristic, streamlining would be important of course and the need for collision fronts would reduce in regard to human contact. Will vehicles actually go driverless, with software doing the work,,, perhaps to a degree as with cruise control today, but some decisions will remain in human hands for some time, unless the road network further changes to allow auto control systems, in other words robotic transportation, its all quite possible, but the possible need for a dense infrastructure to enable this, for the door to door robotic transportation of people may well have been overtaken by even more technology.
Back to Traffic England Problems.
Human beings have to create the system that will eventually come into play, for that we need a cross section of society, good engineers, fully trained engineers, and good administrators, open minded, with love for the job they do, not just as a meal ticket and feathering their own nests with sweet conditions. The website for England’s traffic control,,,, errrr I mean websites because there are two of them, and the main part is essentially the same. This again suggests disorganisation, and actually having two websites near or in part the same can be called “Spamming the Web”, which is against the rules of search engines, so they are treading near or in the direction of that possibility if not over it!
Where do the taxpayers look for traffic information in England from this organisation that has millions of pounds of taxpayers money, which website, quite honestly I don’t always know for sure, because If I say its this one, that can change tomorrow and I would be wrong. I maintain that it’s quite silly to carry on like this. I am drawn to the personal conclusion that England’s traffic management makes a mockery of the word, "Management".
HGV drivers on motorways use CB Radio to check if the boards are correct,,, they know that the boards cannot be relied on for information,,, if a matrix board says there is a hold up ahead it may fall into a number of possibilities,,, that there really is a hold up,,, that there was a hold up,,, there may not have really been a hold up,,, it may not be a long delay,,, it may not be a severe delay,,, traffic may not be stopping when but flowing through a little slower,,, and all this can be multiplied by two because it depends if you are looking at the matrix VMS board on the actual motorway or on line as they can be different,,, and in some instances not just because of a time lag on either one,,, but the same board showing different words which did not appear on its mirror. Quite frankly the is disgusting that such an important system is being abused by what is called management.
I honestly believe that it has to be entrenched with bad attitude and cover up that only complete removal of ALL those in control and those who hired them need removal. Switch off the system and bring in completely new blood who have a vocational commitment and dedication as the Scotland Team have, I don’t believe anything less with suffice.
But lets look at the logic of this, Teddy in his executive car in England has the traffic information allowing him to take any evasive action possible, but the motorway still gets jammed because the masses are not allowed to know because the English traffic control centre has decided that it will sell some information to those who can be persuaded to pay. The importance of cameras against matrix boards is that matrix boards (VMS) in England are not to be relied on. The matrix board on the motorway will often not be the same, as the same one available on the Internet. It might even have quite different words on it, so its not delay factor, but even if they were accurate looking at a camera image has real time certainty and is comforting, especially regards fog and its changing patterns.
In Scotland this is not possible, matrix boards (VMS) are 100% the same, tied together which they should be, so here we go again, and its not just the VMS matrix boards who have iffy information. Its like Russian Roulette, you may be lucky and get correct information,,, but as I see it, the chances are you wont,,, and you possibly might never be aware it was incorrect information. So who will look into this English highways agency and remove the personal, which represents themselves as management. I expect the responsibility stops with the Transport Minister) but I have not wish to blame a minister for the failure of, as I see it, senior civil servants who are no doubt telling him/her that everything is OK,,, common sense tells me that if he or she was aware of the serious often hidden failures of the highways agency to promote a Traffic England information website they would possibly go ballistic! I say hidden because unless you investigate the details of the information supplied you will not be aware that when its important, its possibly just not true for a good percentage of the time.
Just in case you think the English Control Centre problems are a figment of my imagination, the BBC Radio 2 traffic reporter was confused on or near the 8th of May 2006,,, the actual VMS signs on an English Motorway somewhere were saying the road was blocked or closed between some junctions,,, when drivers were reporting in that this was not true, the motorway was clear,,, and congestion was being caused on nearby roads/towns as traffic turned off a perfectly clear motorway to use already busy town and suburban roads. Amen!
Each link OPENS A NEW PAGE/WINDOW WITH a Photograph. CLOSE EACH PAGE/WINDOW WHEN VIEWED.Scotland’s National Traffic Control Centre. England’s is the same but with less wall monitor screens than Scotland. -
KILL the Photograph page with the top right X on your browser when finished.
Photograph sizes are normally 1024 by 766 for personal, or work computer use, as computer desktop wallpaper
DONT FORGET TO CLOSE THE PAGE WITH THE VERY TOP RIGHT X ON YOUR OWN BROWSER
Scotland’s National Traffic Control Centre photograph two. England’s is the same but with less wall monitor screens than Scotland. -
Scotland’s National Traffic Control Centre photo three. England’s is the same but with less wall monitor screens than Scotland. -
Scotland’s National Traffic Control Centre another angle. England’s is the same but with less wall monitor screens than Scotland. -
Scotland’s National Traffic Control Centre building. England’s is bigger, more expensive, modern brick built, very grand! -
Scotland’s National Traffic Control Centre is annexed to this building. -
Scotland’s National Traffic Control Centre is annexed to the city council offices, which, once upon a time was this, and why not! its good use of existing buildings.-
Scotland’s National Traffic Control Centre servers and computer housing bank. -
Scotland’s National Traffic Control Centre computer bank doing the business!
