Importing ideas on roads / signage etc.

murphaph

Motorway signs are not patched as the anderson committee decided they would be too difficult to read at high speed-hence also the UK's creation of the motorway permanent fonts which are taller than the other UK mainstay, transport. We of course adopted a solitary letter, M from that typeface and the digits 0-9 and that's about it! We use transport on motorway signs and motorway on non-motorways. Ludicrous, either copy the bould brits, copy someone else and be done with it or invest in our own high quality system but for heaven's sake don't half copy UK practice and pick bits at random as it all has a logic and hierarchy into which it falls!

Anyhoo-I agree that junction numbers on all motorways and similar roads sshould be pushed to the fore. Most people here don't know anything about them!

However, junction naming on other roads is incredibly useful IMO and is and has been standard practice in the UK and elsewhere for a very long time. I can recall just one named junction here that actually appears atop the advance direction signage as one approaches the junction and that is Newland's Cross when approaching from the south on the R113, not sure about other approaches.

icdg

The Fonthill Road Roundabout at Ronanstown on the R113 used to have signs topped with the junction name as well. That was before they demolished the roundabout and put a set of traffic lights instead!

murphaph

“Type on the roadway is very much like the corporate identity of a country,” says Graham Clifford, a friend of Montalbano’s who runs his own branding and design firm in New York. Clifford, who is English, mentioned the ubiquity of British Transport, which has been used in his country since the late 1950s. In the decades since its adoption, it has appeared on T-shirts and in advertisements, much as Highway Gothic has come to infuse the American consciousness. Phil Baines, a London-based typographer, once called British Transport “the house style for Britain.” Other countries have their own style, too. Clifford told of a trip he took with his wife, driving from England through Wales, then crossing by ferry to Ireland and up to Northern Ireland. Many signs in and around Dublin were written in a quirky local script; the markers in Belfast, however, were uniformly British Transport. “The change in typeface lets you know you’re in a different place,” Clifford said.

New York Times

highlydebased

murphaph wrote:

speaking of airport signage, in the UK the policy is just to display the plane symbol and name of airport beside. For example, on the M60 you'll see signs for Manchester x or even M'cr x where x is the airport symbol, so why do we insist on an airplane symbol AND ALSO the word 'airport', for example Dublin Airport x where x is the airplane symbol. That's the same as saying 'Dublin Airport Airport'. Pointlessness-symbols are there for a reason, to dispense with worded phrases! :rolleyes:

Personally I agree with this

Here in Limerick there are a few signs for Shannon Airport with the annoying aeroplane symbol. And, the aeroplanes are pointed in different directions, randomly. I've been driven to Shannon by a few people who have thought the direction the symbol points is the direction the airport is in! They followed it too and got very lost!!

RadioCity

How many junctions are numbered on the M1? I think Lissehall or the Airport has a number as has the the N52 junction (I think) in Dundalk which is 16.

After that its take the Drogheda/Dunleer/Julianstown exit etc.


Re: that sign, I would try to look at that sign from the perspective of someone not from Dublin. It would be interpreted that the left lane leaves the motorway, the right lane "stays" as the motorway.

I always thought a "Next Exit:..." sign is a far clearer way of signing, I think there might be one or two on the M50.

Richard

I wish that signs pointing to train stations had the name of the station on them. I once spent over an hour in North Dublin trying to find a particular station, only to be confused by lots of signs which just said "Station".

icdg

RadioCity wrote:

How many junctions are numbered on the M1? I think Lissehall or the Airport has a number as has the the N52 junction (I think) in Dundalk which is 16.

After that its take the Drogheda/Dunleer/Julianstown exit etc.


Re: that sign, I would try to look at that sign from the perspective of someone not from Dublin. It would be interpreted that the left lane leaves the motorway, the right lane "stays" as the motorway.

I always thought a "Next Exit:..." sign is a far clearer way of signing, I think there might be one or two on the M50.

To the best of my knowledge only junctions 1-3 and 16-20 (the last junction before the border) are signed with their number on the M1/N1.

Every junction on the M50, M4, M7, and M8 are numbered, though the M4's junction numbering is a bit crazy. Basically J2, J2a, and J3 are numbered according to Lucan/Leixlip being the start of the motorway, but then you jump to J8! This appears to be preperation for the N4 widening scheme which **should** see the M50 as J1, Liffey Valley as J2, Lucan J3, and Esker J4 (with M4 J2-J3 being then renumbered). But for the moment its a little confusing. Oh, and to confuse things just that little bit further, although the motorway ends at J12 for Kinnegad, a few miles up to road at Mullingar, the bypass also has junction numbers - which start again at J9!!!

Re Next Exit signs - these have been present on the M50 since 1990, and are present at most M50 junctions between J5 and J17, and where they are present replace the 1km mini-map ADS (or fork) sign. They were important for the multiplex roads which at that time were signed by their superdestination (so for the N4, rather than signing Sligo, it was signed The WEST, the Next Exit sign would explain that The West meant Sligo, Galway, Castlebar). There's a small number of them on roads other than the M50 (some on the N11 somewhere in south Wicklow) but generally, on other roads the NRA/councils have prefered the traditional 1km mini-map sign instead.

My biggest bugbear is the use of non-standard "no entry" signs that are not very clear in poor visibility & probably not understood by most foreigners when they first drive here.

THIS is a no entry sign!

Victor

icdg wrote:

To the best of my knowledge only junctions 1-3 and 16-20 (the last junction before the border) are signed with their number on the M1/N1.

Michelin have them all numbered up to Dundalk.

http://www.viamichelin.com/viamichelin/int/dyn/controller/mapPerformPage?strCountry=919&strAddress=&strMerged=dundalk&x=32&y=5#

Yoda

Name all the roads and put signs on them with their names.

inspiron77

i think signage with correct name and spelling will be good. If possible also have direction on it.

larchill

Just after the Drogheda section of the M1 opened, the Airport - Lissenhall section opened. This gave a continuous section of Motorway for the 1st time from Dublin to just south of Dundalk at the time (now extended to Newry). I emailed the NRA at the time regarding exit numbers. The reply at the time (Nov. 03) was:

"At present, on most of our Major Interurban (MIU) Routes there are not continuous lengths of motorway / high quality dual carriageway but rather we have isolated lengths of motorway/dual carriageway with grade separated junctions bypassing towns such as Drogheda, Portlaoise, Newbridge, Glanmire, etc with lengths of ordinary single carriageway roads with at-grade junctions on the remainder. Hence a national junction numbering system would not make a lot of sense at this stage"

Almost 4 years later except for the dundalk section & recently opened section to Newry, & the 1st few exits around the Airport we still have no numbers. I emailled the NRA recently & got no reply!

jrar

Yes, it's a disgrace alright, but then so is much else that they do, or fail to do e.g. gantries, signage, lack of nearside and median barriers, etc.

Of course, we're forgetting the most important thing of all here - they're seemingly unanswerable to anyone in a position of power. So they certainly don't have to answer to a mere taxpayer, huh !

larchill

When in Austria during the summer, I noticed that every road had a name, & every building a number. This was the case even out in the countryside! This makes it much earier to find places & people. Compare with our archaic setup of townlands. No one even the locals knows where one townland ends & the next begins!

yayamark

yes that townland thing is a mess.

Steve

The American junction numbering is far superior - it's based on distance in miles from a set point on the road.
e.g. when you are passing junction 12 and you want to exit on junction 18 then you know that you have 6 miles to go and can cruise happily in the 3rd or 4th lane - 5 miles later passing junction 17 you can start thinking of moving right to exit.
It also makes sense when a junction is later added to the freeway - it gets numbered Junction 44 because that's the mile marker.
What happens in Ireland when they want to add a junction ?
e.g. they build a new airport somewhere up the M1 between say J12 and J13 - do they call it exit 12 and a half??
On most freeways they give 1 mile and 1/2 mile pre-warnings of approaching exits and clearly indicate which lane you should be in to exit.

Richard

stevec wrote:

e.g. they build a new airport somewhere up the M1 between say J12 and J13 - do they call it exit 12 and a half??
On most freeways they give 1 mile and 1/2 mile pre-warnings of approaching exits and clearly indicate which lane you should be in to exit.

I don't know if this has happened - but in the UK, it would be J12A

icdg

The same thing happens here. If a new interchange is built between two existing numbered ones it takes the lower number with an "A". There's only one instance where this has occoured, the Celbridge Interchange on the M4 which is Junction 2A. (It is due to be renamed J6 at some point to tie into the Lucan Road upgrade, but at the moment its still signed J2A.)

spacetweek

stevec wrote:

The American junction numbering is far superior - it's based on distance in miles from a set point on the road.
e.g. when you are passing junction 12 and you want to exit on junction 18 then you know that you have 6 miles to go and can cruise happily in the 3rd or 4th lane - 5 miles later passing junction 17 you can start thinking of moving right to exit.
It also makes sense when a junction is later added to the freeway - it gets numbered Junction 44 because that's the mile marker.
What happens in Ireland when they want to add a junction ?
e.g. they build a new airport somewhere up the M1 between say J12 and J13 - do they call it exit 12 and a half??
On most freeways they give 1 mile and 1/2 mile pre-warnings of approaching exits and clearly indicate which lane you should be in to exit.

Stevec the by-distance and by-ordinal systems are both well established and there seems to be an even split of countries that use one system versus the other (though some don't number at all). Both have advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages of the distance one is that the junction numbers are not intuitive (72 comes after 51??) and that in an urban area, junctions may be closer than 1 mile or 1 kilometre.

I think in Ireland per-km junction numbering would not be necessary due to the small size of the island and the relatively small number of junctions on any road - ordinal should be fine.

In any case, not all US states use per-mile.

stevec wrote:

On most freeways they give 1 mile and 1/2 mile pre-warnings of approaching exits and clearly indicate which lane you should be in to exit.

That's called advance signage and every country uses it.

Victor

stevec wrote:

e.g. they build a new airport somewhere up the M1 between say J12 and J13 - do they call it exit 12 and a half??

Of course, in Ireland J12 and J13 are only a mile and a half apart. J12 for the passenger terminall and J13 for cargo.

Steve

spacetweek wrote:

The disadvantages of the distance one is that the junction numbers are not intuitive (72 comes after 51??)

Maybe not as intuative as 1,2,3 but infinitely more useful - knowing how long till your exit gives you an opportunity to progress through traffic as opposed to sitting in lane 1 having past J12 waiting for J13 which could be 1 km away or 20km away.

It's a matter of personal preference as to which suits an individual better.
Having driven in many countries in Eurpoe / Aisa / North America and experienced the different methods, I prefer the distance one.

I also have issues with our silly "only overtake on the right on a multilane road" laws but that's for another topic.

I think that a major factor in this country is the relatively low population and sparse infrastructure - this means that relatively high percentage of the people on a given road at a given time will have been there before and so will know what to expect and when to turn off. The newbie / tourist hasn't a hope on some of our roads.

Compare this with other countries and the likelyhood is that a higher percentage of them will not have been on the road before - maybe have not even been in the country / state before - so the need for adequate legible sinage is high.
This is why the NRA or whoever is responsible have gotten away for so long with the crap they are putting on our roads.

spacetweek wrote:

and that in an urban area, junctions may be closer than 1 mile or 1 kilometre.

And that is when the J12A J12B kicks in.

spacetweek wrote:

I think in Ireland per-km junction numbering would not be necessary due to the small size of the island and the relatively small number of junctions on any road - ordinal should be fine.

Agreed - but someday we will have a relatively complex infrastructure and when we end up with 6 new junctions along a now junctionless 40km stretch of motorway the intuative advantage of J8 follows J7 loses its meaning.

spacetweek wrote:

That's called advance signage and every country uses it.

Except we're the only ones that put the turn-off signs AFTER the junction:D

murphaph

stevec wrote:

Maybe not as intuative as 1,2,3 but infinitely more useful - knowing how long till your exit gives you an opportunity to progress through traffic as opposed to sitting in lane 1 having past J12 waiting for J13 which could be 1 km away or 20km away.

If folk really want to know how far along their junction is on a long distance road they have never used before, they should use a map.

If we build 4 new junctions on a now junctionless 40km stretch (this would be a very long distance to go without a junction on any roads we are presently building and I'm not sure we have any such stretches apart from the M4 toll) then we can use jxa, b and c and/or renumber the junctions along the whole stretch. We are only talking about up to 30 junctions on the longest roads so renumbering junctions just means adding a small patch to 100 signs, but that's an extreme measure at that. Using a, b and c will do fine.

Carawaystick

renumbering junctions immediately outdates all maps, local knowledge, and advertising materiel currently published.

This makes your comment to use a map less useful as it may go out of date wrt junction numbers. The distance scheme is free information

non unique junction numbers are a sign of bad planning. I think we can do without importing bad planning here, it seems to grow like a fungus here already.

It may be mentioned earlier in the thread, but kilometer posts should be erected on roads, making the location and distance on a route more obvious. particularly for Emergency situations.
In France, there's large posts every km and small markers every 500m on motorways. the km stones are on all roads from their equivalent R ( Route Departmental) to Autoroutes.

French motorways also have a sign telling the distance to the next exit at the approach to the current exit.

Carawaystick

Carawaystick wrote:

renumbering junctions immediately outdates all maps, local knowledge, and advertising materiel currently published.

.

Renumbering should only be done if a road has been completely rebuilt and bears little resemblance to the original road. the N/M4 & N/M6 junctions can be numbered in one exercise as it will be (mostly) a completely new road. You should really buy a new road atlas every couple of years anyway, travelling any distance on major roads with an out of date map is asking for trouble. either that or draw the new roads in the old atlas

Carawaystick wrote:

In France, there's large posts every km and small markers every 500m on motorways.

.

The UK has these as well but they are there to direct you to the nearest emergency phone.

jrar

Carawaystick wrote:

French motorways also have a sign telling the distance to the next exit at the approach to the current exit.

Which is an excellent service, but is also between junctions on most French autoroutes in France are usually 25-35 kms apart as the roads are for genuine inter-urban traffic as distinct from local journeys etc.

Carawaystick

the Autoroutes have painted marks directing you to the nearest emergency phones on the road in addition to the km posts.

Yeah most junctions are widely spaced, mainly due to the extra overhead cost of tolling - See M4 here, also the M1 free section has more junctions than the tolled section
Free Autoroutes tend to have more junctions, and not just bypass routes either. The autoroute from Metz to Luxembourg has junctions thick and fast along the route every 5 km or so.

Carawaystick

the Autoroutes have painted marks directing you to the nearest emergency phones on the road in addition to the km posts.

If the M1 was fully numbered, what would you do with the new Swords exit? it's far enough from the Airport junction to warrant it's own number if Firhouse and Ballymount warrant their own in a consistent system.

Yeah most junctions are widely spaced, mainly due to the extra overhead cost of tolling - See M4 here, also the M1 free section has more junctions than the tolled section
Free Autoroutes tend to have more junctions, and not just bypass routes either. The autoroute from Metz to Luxembourg has junctions thick and fast along the route every 5 km or so.

icdg

Personally I prefer our junction numbering system the way it is. Anyone that can count 1,2,3,4 etc can use it - the distance based system is more confusing IMO. Re letters, I doubt there will be that many junctions newly inserted once the network is complete anyway - M4 J2A was a one off that was on the cards from the day the motorway opened or even before due to local conditions in Leixlip (as in, the towns entire industrial area was on the opposite side of the town to the original Junction 2!). There will be a renumbering on the M4 in any case which will make this go away. The new junctions I can see coming into existance on the main motorways at present will be if the DOOR is built, but that may be ten or twenty years away.

Someday, maybe, they might even build M50 J8...

jrar

Yes, our junction numbering system is fine, but a) when will the junction numbers actually start to appear on OS maps ?, and b) will traffic reports (and the public in general) ever start to use the numbers rather than junction "names" ??

murphaph

jrar wrote:

Yes, our junction numbering system is fine, but a) when will the junction numbers actually start to appear on OS maps ?

They already do on my OS Dublin map from this year. It shows the current numbers on the N7 too.