Introduction

Managed motorway is a management system for controlling the traffic on the motorways through the use of technology. Tools such cameras, sensors, structural road designs, transport-patterns and various other tools provide useful information that are used to control the traffic on motorways.

For the last many years, Motorway traffic of the world has been growing consistently. In the UK an increase of around 1.5 percent per annum has been reported. Although high fuel prices and economic problems could slow the growth rate, it is high likely the Motorway will continue to grow in the upcoming years.

Europe Motorways in particular are becoming increasingly congested making it difficult for the public to reach the destination on time. A lot of effort has been made to increase the capacity of existing road networks and one way of doing that is converting hard shoulders into a running lane, reports Paul Unwin in his research paper, ‘‘atm to managed motorways; delivering operational benefits to road users through the introduction of innovative technology solutions“.

For many years, the use of hard shoulder has been discouraged by the Traffic Authorities, mainly due to the reason they are unsafe and present a significant risk. Analysts say that safer and more innovative options should be introduced to control ever growing traffic without spending a fortune.

In the UK, the concept of hard shoulders was introduced in 1959 and since then it has been considered a compulsory feature as it provides for lack of vehicle/motor reliability (Controlled Motorways Highways Agency Web Site, 2012). However in the recent times, this concept has been challenged with new state of art technologies allowing for better control with respect to improvements and motorway environment.

After successful and meaning completion of the M-42 Active Traffic Management (ATM) Pilot, the federal government is focusing solely on making better use of the existing plan rather spending unwisely on the expensive widening schemes.

Expansion schemes, of course, present a better and attractive looking road network but in the long run, it cannot cope with the growing traffic in future (Unwin and Marsh, 2009). The federal government initially decided to address the congestion and journey time issues on M-25 by successfully implementing the M-25 Controlled Motorways scheme.

The project was considered to be a huge success and subsequently the Active Traffic Management and Managed Motorways concept was introduced to make better use of the existing highway facilities to overcome challenges involving regular congestion, safety concerns, insufficient road capacity and inconsistent journey times.

It should be noted that the concept of Active Traffic Management has been developed after successful completion of M-25 Controlled Motorways project, making it a reliable and durable traffic design programme.

The main objective of M-25 project was to prove that by better use of technology and existing road networks, congestion, safety concerns and other challenges can be overcome in a cost effective manner (Controlled Motorways Highways Agency Web Site, 2012). For the first time in the history of the UK, the concept of making hard shoulder was challenged, proposing that it should be turned into a routine running lane.

Although the concept of hard shoulder has proven to be a great success over the last many years, laying the foundations for the current Manager Motorways thinking, the time has come to dispose it to achieve better traffic control.

Managed Motorways; Developments so far

In this section we will be looking at various Managed Motorways projects in order to understand how innovative thinking and better use of technology can help us save valuable time and resources (Noland and Quddus, 2005). New benchmarks offering improved reliability and efficiently have also been set to make the Motorways more safe and beneficial for the users.

Figure 1: Motorway Cameras installed to give live coverage to the management team

M-25 Controlled Motorway (1998---2002); Mother of Managed Motorways concept

The concept of Controlled Motorways was first introduced in 1998 in an effort to control the ever growing traffic on M25. By putting up speed frameworks with supporting lane signalling at every 1000 meters, the Traffic Agency ensured the traffic speed could be controlled and start stop behaviour reduced.

By reducing the flow Interruptions, considerable increase in capacity was also observed. After the scheme was implemented successful, it produced some staggering results (Unwin and Marsh, 2009). A 15 percent reduction in personal injury accidents was reported. Some called for the concept to be further developed to solve traffic and congestions problems across the country.

M-42 Active Traffic Management Pilot

M-42 Active Traffic Management Pilot or ATM Pilot played a big part in changing government’s policies towards traffic control. By the end of 1990’s, the Traffic  Agencies had started to realise the importance of making better use of the existing land rather than the expensive widening techniques that gave less value for money and had a big impact on the general public and the environment. Furthermore, the widening schemes presented with a lot traffic management issues during road construction, making it infamous among general public.

In order to find an effective and efficient solution to congestion and safety issues, the concept of M-42 ATM Pilot was introduced, which allowed the drivers to use hard shoulder as an additional running lane for the first time in the UK. The project proved to be major breakthrough as it helped reduce traffic load in peak times by delivering hard running on M-42.

Like M-25 Managed Motorways, the ATM provided gantries at a nominal 500 m spacing to control the speeds of the vehicles. The framework was designed in a way that it enhanced the visibility of the signs and signals so the road users could follow the rules and regulations (Unwin and Marsh, 2009). After the project was implements, it was clear that the success of Managed Motorway Schemes is largely dependent on drivers’ behaviours in addition to speed control.   Therefore, it is vital to deliver a timely message to the drivers to ensure he is not left in the doubt as what to do.

Managed Motorways in future; looking ahead

The UK Transport Secretary has already issued a £6 billion funding to bring improvement in the existing motorways network in the country. The lessons learnt while implementing the M-42 ATM Pilot and M-25 MM will be used as pillars of road improvement programs in the future.

Operational hurdles

It is now safe to say that the success of M-42 ATM pilot was made possible by overcoming several operational and technical obstacles. Best practices were utilized following international standards to make the development process reliable sand safer.

Even the message sign and signals technology was not proven and considerable amount of work had to be done on it to make it a reliable and successful operation. The objectives of the scheme were to provide safer and better road networks and better use of the existing land.

Following are the success factors

• Challenging the standards to achieve better outcome
• Improved safety for the drivers
• Stakeholder management
• Design process based on operations
• Design for maintenance

 It should be noted that these success factors cannot be fed into the design processing without considering the objectives and requirements of a particular project (Unwin and Marsh, 2009). There it is vital to understand the objectives before finalizing the operational approach. The design engineer and his team is usually responsible to consider every aspect of the process to deliver the desired outcome for their clients.

Figure 2: Motorway Management Team Office and data centre

Benefits of Managed Motorways

The concept of Managed Motorways has resulted in a number of benefits for both the users and the traffic agencies. Consistent journey times and increased capacity are the two main benefits of the Managed Motorways.

 Implementation of Managed Motorways and opening hard shoulders on congested sections of motorways can also deliver similar results as produced by the M-42 ATM scheme.

The ATM Pilot scheme has opened up several opportunities for the Highways Agencies including managing the road networks as a whole rather than as individual elements.

The concept has also allowed a better traffic control by feeding relatives information into systems enabling predictive signal setting. Therefore it helped the congestion from happening in the first place. Perhaps, this will area of technology will be the focus of attention in the future as we start to tackle operational management.

Consistent Journey Times

For the last many years, not knowing how long it will take to get a particular destination has remained a major frustration for the driving public. Therefore, the Managed Motorways concept also looks at making the Journey Time consistent.

It should be noted that MM does not guarantee a shorter journey time but it gives reliable and consistent expected times to help the users to take out their frustration.

Looking at the traffic data for the twelvemonths after implementation of ATM Pilot, it was revealed that the journey time variations were reduced by a staggering 16 % when all signal and signs were operational (Noland and Quddus, 2005). A drop of 60 percent was recorded during the peak times on Friday, usually considered the busiest day of the week. Drivers do not mind a minor increase in the journey times as long as they get to the destination on expected time, several public surveys have disclosed. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the importance of Managed Motorways as it maximizes the benefits in terms of journey time.

Furthermore, the frequency of the traffic dropping below 25mph has decreased considerable with Managed Motorways, showing reduction in flow breakdown has helped the traffic agency predict accurate journey times.

Figure 3: Operational Excellence achieved through Motorway Management

Improved capacity

Improved and consistent journey times are highly dependants on an increased capacity, which Managed Motorways aim to deliver (Noland and Quddus, 2005). By having a better speed and lance control over the traffic, road’s potential capacity cane be increased significantly.

By placing a control speed environment, once can reduce unnecessary braking from the drivers. With MM scheme in place, flows of in excess of 2000 vehicles-per-hour per lane has been observed as compared to the traditional value of 1800 vehciles-per-hour. The use of hard shoulder as running lane for the users has definitely increased the overall capacity of the Motorways and having a controlled traffic environment has made the roads safer than before.

Similarly, with 4 lanes, the distribution of traffic has been improved by improving lane utilization on the Motorways. Around 12 percent of the total drivers have used hard shoulder as a results of the messages displayed on the frameworks, thus resulting in better traffic distribution. More research is needed in this area of work to achieve better capacity numbers.

Drivers’ safety and compliance

As we have discussed earlier that better lane utilization and speed control smoothes the traffic operations on the Motorways. Smooth traffic, in return, results in minimum casualties and personal injuries on the roads (Noland and Quddus, 2005). Furthermore, the M42 ATM was designed with objectives in mind; Drivers’ safety and more capacity.

The M42 ATM Pilot is now considered the safest section of Motorways in the UK. According to the data provided the Traffic control authority, the average number of personal injury accidents have reduced considerably on Managed sections of Motorways with a decrease of nearly 3 accidents per month.

 Additionally, the speed compliance has played a big part in making operations safe on the motorways. Having a controlled speed and traffic behavior has also helped achieving several traffic benefits (Noland and Quddus, 2005). A robust and well designed signaling regime also deserves a lot of credit as it displayed the benefits of following rules and therefore making the compliance high under all speed limits.

Figure 4: Safety in well managed motorways plays a key role

Low carbon emission

Optimized use of the existing road networks is one of the benefits provided by he Managed motorway system. The managed motorway systems have lower impact on the environment as compared to traditional road widening/development schemes (Anh et al, 2009). Furthermore, it ensures better traffic flows during the construction-phase and reduces noise pollution

Much research has been done in the recent years to assess the impact of the pollution produced by road users in urban areas. Many of these researchers concluded that motor vehicles produce the largest share of the overall air pollution in the said areas (Anh et al, 2009). Managed motor ways systems bring in rules/procedures that accommodate the recommendations provided in the research conclusions for example reduced speed limits and vehicle management systems. This can have an influencing impact on reducing the air pollution on many of the managed motorways.

Conclusion

Managed motorway is an operating system that is used to manage and control road congestion and traffic-flows on highways. This system benefits in terms of overall traffic performance. It provides many other benefits that include provision of safety on motorways, real times based traffic data, travel information, excellent management of congestion and overall traffic; through the use state of the art technology e.g. cameras, electrical display signs and speed measurement devices.

References

1. Ahn K, Rakha, H., Trani, A, and Van Aerde. M. (2002). Estimating Vehicle Fuel Consumption and Emissions based on Instantaneous Speed and Acceleration Levels, Journal of Transport Engineering, Volume 128, Issue 2, pp. 181 – 191
2. Britain’s Transport Infrastructure Motorways and Major Trunk Roads (2009), available online at http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/network/policy/motorways/motorways.pdf, retrieved on 08, 12, 2012
3. Controlled Motorways, Highways Agency Web Site, available online at https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/managing-improving-and-investing-in-the-road-network, retrieved on 11,12, 2012
4. DfT Command Paper, Roads - Delivering Choice and Reliability. (2008), available online at http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/introtoroads/roadcongestion/roadscommandpaper1.pdf retrieved on 10,12, 2012
5. Noland, R.B., and Quddus, M.A (2005). Congestion and safety. A spatial analyses of London Transportation Research A, 39, 737-754
6. OECD/EMCT (2006). Road Safety: Speed Moderation European Conference of Ministers Transport Organization for Economic Co-operation and development, France
7. OECD/EMCT (1996). Road Safety: Speed Moderation European Conference of Ministers Transport Organization for Economic Co-operation  and development, France
8. Unwin,P., Marsh.P. (2009). ATM to managed Motorways; Delivering Operational Benefits to Road Users Through The Introduction of Innovative technology Solutions, pp. 01 – 12