Virtual bus lanes

Floater

In the town of Rapperswil (CH) they have virtual bus lanes. During the morning peak a long line of vehicles can accumulate behind a traffic signal controlled junction.

If a bus is waiting in this queue the traffic system in Rapperswil can clear the opposing lane (ie out of town direction) by giving a red light to vehicles leaving the town (the lane out of town is normally quiet in the morning). When any traffic coming against the bus is flushed out, the bus driver performs an overtaking maneuver (protected by the red light) to safely overtake the line of cars. As it approaches a detector just before the stop line the bus is given a green bus priority light to go through the junction and resume its position in the correct lane. The system reverses the direction of operation during the evening rush-hour.

Using this system public transport can queue-jump their way into the centre without the need to create separate bus lanes. Very often roads are not wide enough to allow the creation of bus lanes, and where they are created they remove a large chunk of road carrying capacity for ordinary traffic – as happened in Dublin.

Ingenious, simple, inexpensive, pro-public transport. Why isn’t this simple technique being applied in more urban areas?

Floater

GerardKeating

Originally posted by Floater
Using this system public transport can queue-jump their way into the centre without the need to create separate bus lanes. Very often roads are not wide enough to allow the creation of bus lanes, and where they are created they remove a large chunk of road carrying capacity for ordinary traffic ? as happened in Dublin.

Ingenious, simple, inexpensive, pro-public transport. Why isn?t this simple technique being applied in more urban areas?

Floater [/B]

This would never work in Ireland, sure the average motorist does not even know what a Yellow box is for...

Better trained and mannered motorists would do more for improving traffic in the city....


gerard

Floater

Originally posted by GerardKeating
This would never work in Ireland, sure the average motorist does not even know what a Yellow box is for...

Better trained and mannered motorists would do more for improving traffic in the city....

Put a Garda on duty handing out points (+ the usual OTT fines we have) to anyone who drives through a red light during the first week and people would wise up quickly. It doesn't require any intelligence on the part of the motorist other than to stop at a red light.

Floater

Occidental

Go nicely with some of our virtual buses, or better still the 17A, which was Irelands first virtual bus route.

Victor

Originally posted by Occidental
Go nicely with some of our virtual buses, or better still the 17A, which was Irelands first virtual bus route.

Butttt .... http://www.dublinbus.ie/your_journey/viewer.asp?route=17a

phaxx

Originally posted by Occidental
Go nicely with some of our virtual buses, or better still the 17A, which was Irelands first virtual bus route.

Aah, I take it you've never tried to catch a 68 then?

Lucutus

You don't 'catch a 68', you wait at the stop for an eternity until one finally winds its way from newcastle.

Victor

Originally posted by Lucutus
You don't 'catch a 68', you wait at the stop for an eternity until one finally winds its way from newcastle.

Busses run for those that wait, not wait for those that run ...

Bee

Great idea Floater but it would be destroyed by two items

The Traffic Dept of DCC are incapable of planning a city centre road system.

And the 91% of lunatic cyclists that ignore all of the red lights thru' town and cycle on their idiotically merry way thru red lights, against oncoming traffic etc.

At least perhaps it might get the idiots back off the footpath!

Don't believe me? Ask the nice garda eyeballing DCC's traffic cameras for a 1 hour cyclist count along Dame St trashing the red lights.

Bee

Seth Brundle

Much of the traffic problems would be sorted if (as already mentioned) the enforcement of amber/red light regulations was carried out (from my experience, a lot of the M50/N4 junction problems in the morning occur because of people coming off the M50 southbound, breaking amber or red lights and parking themselves infront of inbound traffic on the N4).
Furthermore, many of the un-necessary right hand turns should be prohibited during peak hours.

Floater

Originally posted by Bee
Great idea Floater but it would be destroyed by two items

The Traffic Dept of DCC are incapable of planning a city centre road system.

I wasn't really thinking of this idea for Dublin. Dublin has wide streets and the problem is the junctions rather than the streets themselves and the inability of the people responsible to (a) put a traffic signalling system in place to drive the fluidity of traffic flow dynamically and (b) install underpasses at critical junctions to again keep the flow moving.

And the 91% of lunatic cyclists that ignore all of the red lights thru' town and cycle on their idiotically merry way thru red lights, against oncoming traffic etc.

This is surely one reason for them to wise up or get an approaching bus in the face if they swing around the corner at high speed having crashed a red light that has been red for quite some time! Signage: WARNING triangle format with a graphic of a bicycle crashing into a bus and a traffic light on red.

The world has to move on. Yob cyclists can't be allowed to rule the roost when it comes to improving the lot of commuters generally.

Floater

Floater

Originally posted by kbannon
Much of the traffic problems would be sorted if (as already mentioned) the enforcement of amber/red light regulations was carried out (from my experience, a lot of the M50/N4 junction problems in the morning occur because of people coming off the M50 southbound, breaking amber or red lights and parking themselves infront of inbound traffic on the N4).
Furthermore, many of the un-necessary right hand turns should be prohibited during peak hours.

Is there a box junction immediately after the M50 stop line? In any other country you would have police at a point like that until the problem ceases. Give them a digital camera, 2GB of memory and one guy could take a few thousand photos of license plates protruding over the stop line in one session if necessary. Send them fines in the mail.

It is back to awful driver training standards (ie none) and the need for a massive TV advertising campaign to show drivers how to behave at traffic lights (ie stop at the stop line), and all other aspects of driving too. It also requires local authorities to paint stop lines which isn't always happening either!

Floater

gurramok

Furthermore, many of the un-necessary right hand turns should be prohibited during peak hours

Problem is that there are too many right-hand turns prohibited especially at important turns on the southside.
For instance to get from 6pm on a clock to 4pm, you have to go to 12pm first !
Too much traffic has been diverted onto 'main' routes un-neccesarily.
Virtual bus-lanes would really work if every single road in city centre and inner ring was made one-way
Guess buses would run on tme then in theory

a lot of the M50/N4 junction problems in the morning occur because of people coming off the M50 southbound, breaking amber or red lights

Traffic lights should not exist there in first place, flyover should of been built. Reason why there is red light jumpers coz signals dont allow enough time to cross it, in mornings this adds to stress of drivers trying to make it to work on time(they have arrival deadlines to work in their heads ).
Plebs planned dublins infrastructure


off-topic--- why oh why have they changed the traffic light sequence northbound at bridge street('the brazen head) to church st bridge to a mere 20 seconds. 4 cars at most can cross. Traffic backs up all the way as far as merrion/dame street/rathmines/harolds cross in evening rush hours(plural now) !
----off-topic

Bee

The world has to move on. Yob cyclists can't be allowed to rule the roost when it comes to improving the lot of commuters generally.

Absolutely! But in our wonderful City of lunatic cyclists no one ever bothers to control them. Have a look at the couriers cycling on the wrong side of the road up a one way street and around Baggot St!

Gardai ignore them yet they are lethal to themselves never mind pedestrians and compliant road users.

At this stage they need to pay tax and insurance I honestly think that is the only way to bring them into line.

If you actually examine problem junctions with yellow box's full of cars you will discover that due to inept traffic light planning and bad road design by DCC they actually create the problem. The timing at these junctions need to vary considerably in line with traffic demand to allow a good traffic flow but they never do. There is some "live" control over traffic lights in DCC but as demonstrated daily, they are totally inept at doing so.

We need the system privatised with measureable results rewarded rather than the economically damaging system in place now.

Bee

Floater

Originally posted by Bee
There is some "live" control over traffic lights in DCC but as demonstrated daily, they are totally inept at doing so.

Under normal circumstances* there shouldn't need to be many manual intervention over traffic lights if the system is properly designed and installed.

One of the problems with SCATS is that it is based on detectors at the stop line. It doesn't know how many vehicles are waiting in each queue. It can't therefore make rational judgments on how it allocates time. In light traffic SCATS can tell when a queue is cleared because no more vehicles pass over the stop line. In bumper to bumper Dublin heavy traffic the queue never clears. It is dependent therefore on manual settings which quickly get out of date. On the M50 N4 case, the mathematical model should be taking into consideration automatically the number of cars queuing down the N4, the queue size on the M50 leading to the offramp [is it moving or static on the left lane way upstream on the motorway itself?], etc etc on all approaches to the roundabout. And it should have blockage detectors. I'm saying this in the context of traffic lights and a gyratory system being a temporary measure until an interchange is implemented.

I remember watching traffic chaos elsewhere when the control box for a set of traffic lights went off because of an electrical fault. This system was controlled by SCOOT. Gridlock ensued for about an hour. They had police directing traffic on the junction to no avail. The minute they put the power back on, the system automatically gave abnormally long green time to clear the congestion backup. It knew the extent of the queues and which streets where holding the vehicles because of upstream detection. Within ten minutes traffic flow was back to normal. There is even better technology than SCOOT too!


Floater

*possible exception streets closed for road works