Sectors & Forums General Discussion

No surprise here. We have the worst roads, therefore the most congestion,therefore the most pollution.

An engine is at its least polluting at a steady fast speed, as on uncongested motorways. The way forward is clarly to reduce congestion pinch points and to build more unobstructed roads.

Robert Bolt wrote:

No surprise here. We have the worst roads, therefore the most congestion,therefore the most pollution.

An engine is at its least polluting at a steady fast speed, as on uncongested motorways. The way forward is clarly to reduce congestion pinch points and to build more unobstructed roads.

 I despair sometimes.

 Ever thought about reducing traffic as a solution?

Your No.10 petition on the subject of "pinch points" wasn't hugely popular at 141 signatures.  Probably because the rationale for your petition was utterly flawed.

On "uncongested motorways" a big proportion of vehicles are exceeding the speed limit and hence using more fuel.  If you really wanted less pollution you'd advocate a 50 or 60mph limit on motorways rigorously enforced.  This would also have the benefit of creating more capacity so traffic flow could be greater before congestion occurs.

As for building more roads, its pretty well established that more roads = more traffic (= more pollution).

A lot of the air quality problems we have are in urban areas where it is impossible (and in any case not desirable) to provide more road capacity.  The only solution is to implement policies to bring about modal shift away from the car to public transport, walking, and cycling.

Michael Acheampong wrote: Building more roads is not the solution but educating on "the need to travel" and "use of public transport" is the way forward. I promise you, more roads more cars hence more traffic and pollution.

I'm afraid there are far too many people who have varying ideas on how to reduce congestion, but no joined-up thoughts whatsoever. Government dithers, and local government do their own thing, which can result in some crazy situations around towns and cities.

Building more roads I agree is is not the sole answer, although there's a need for a few to be extended, modified or redirected. By far the simplest, and cheapest way of reducing congestion on our motorway networks is lane discipline at peak hours on some sections of motorways for HGV's. We've all been cruising in the outside lane of a motorway, when for no apparent reason we grind to a halt. This happens because earlier an HGV truck pulled out to overtake another truck. Some traffic in the middle lane then moves into the outside lane, which causes traffic to slow. This one overtaking manouver by the truck in the nearside lane, gradually escalates into a concertina that will at some stage bring traffic to a halt. The original incident may well have happened quite a while ago, but the incident gets worse as traffic gradually gets slower and slower. Incidents like this happen constantly, especially on sections of motorway where a climb is required. For example the M62 over the Pennines, where fully freighted trucks will try to keep revs' at optimum levels and will overtake rather than be forced to slow down, which requires gear changes into lower ratio's. If all trucks were forced to stay in the nearside lanes through the peak periods on certain motorway sections, the 2 outside lanes would be moving freely without much incident, and without doubt collisions would also be reduced.

Congestion on our motorways carries a massive cost to industry both financial and environmental. has anyone yet calculated the variance on the carbon footprint of a truck making deliveries. Or is there one matrix which factors in a % of congestion into all truck movements

Forcing HGVs to remain in the inside lane wouldn't achieve anything.  Most traffic is cars and so they contribute most to congestion...

 You've overlooked that the capacity of a road is greater at lower speeds - i.e. if everyone was travelling at HGV speed of 56mph rather than 70mph (or more like 80 or 90 for a lot of cars) then a greater volume of traffic can be carried before congestion occurs.  Its for this reason there are variable speed limits on the M25 and part of the M42.  Studies of the M42 also show that "Active Traffic Management" has reduced accidents.