Motorway lights have made journeys longer

Traffic lights introduced at motorway junctions to ease congestion have made journey times worse, despite Highways England spending £317million on the schemes, a report has revealed. The report by Highways England showed that a pinch-point programme to tackle particularly congested areas of road often made journeys quicker during rush hour, but slower at other times of the day. That meant that overall journey times were slower than before.

TRAFFIC lights introduced at motorway junctions to ease congestion have made journey times worse, despite Highways England spending £317million on the schemes, a government report has revealed.

The report by Highways England showed that a pinch-point programme to tackle particularly congested areas of road often made journeys quicker during rush hour, but slower at other times of the day.

That meant that overall journey times were slower than before. Highways England believes the slower overall journey times were mainly caused by the introduction of traffic lights, with 44 per cent of the schemes introducing the new signalling. The RAC described the findings as “very disappointing”.

Some 119 congested areas of road received a share of the funding, announced in the 2011 Budget. The report looked at the first-year impact of 54 of the 119 schemes carried out on England’s motorways and major A roads. Nearly half of the schemes that aimed to cut journey times failed to achieve that goal.

The report concluded that such schemes must consider their impact “across all 168 hours of the week, not just the 10-30 peak hours”.

Future schemes must “better consider how to mitigate the downsides while maintaining the upsides”, the document added.

The pinch-point programme was established in 2011 to relieve congestion, stimulate growth in local economies and improve safety, and was completed by March 2016.

Small-scale projects, generally costing up to £10 million, were chosen, with work often involving changes to junctions, adding traffic lights, widening slip roads and putting up signage.

Nicholas Lyes, RAC’S head of roads policy, said: “While congestion has been reduced at peak times of the day, unfortunately many schemes have seen increased traffic at off-peak periods, mostly due to traffic lights being introduced. Luckily, it seems as though there are some simple steps that can be taken to improve the worst of these new off-peak traffic flow issues, such as changing signals to work part-time instead of full-time.

“It is also important to realise that this work was not just about reducing congestion, and that many schemes have seen small reductions in the number of road casualties.”

A spokesman for Highways England said: “This report shows that overall, these schemes … were successful at tackling congestion at the busiest times and improving safety. This useful insight is helping us develop improved appraisal methods for small-scale schemes, which in turn help us deliver improved benefits to people using our motorways and major A roads.

“Meanwhile, we are considering a range of options to improve journeys by using traffic signals which respond to traffic flows.”