Ramp Meters - Thoughts?

ironclaw

What do people think of ramp meters at certain sections of the M50 at peak times? I believe a lot of the junctions could benefit from them as people here have a complete inability to merge. They see a rake of traffic coming down the ramp and panic, or those that come to the end of the slip and panic with all the cars behind them and to their right. For example, the traffic between the M11 merge and the Cherrywood ramp northbound is single handedly caused by traffic unable to merge from Cherrywood onto the M50.

Having seen them in action across the US, they do work and I've rarely seen the merging antics we put up with here on a daily basis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramp_meter

jimgoose

I'd say they're worth a try at some of the more problematic slip-roads on, for example, the M50.

Special Circumstances

Computer vision system and an aircraft carrier styl steam powered catapult to propel the gimps into gaps at a speed matching the main flow?

Buckle up johnjoe and breda, you have been deemed incapable of using a gear box to accelerate at a sensible rate to a sensible speed.

9935452

ive seen in england , traffic lights on slip roads which could work here

jimgoose

Special Circumstances wrote: »

Computer vision system and an aircraft carrier styl steam powered catapult to propel the gimps into gaps at a speed matching the main flow?

Buckle up johnjoe and breda, you have been deemed incapable of using a gear box to accelerate at a sensible rate to a sensible speed.

The blank, sometimes terrified, looks I get when instructing some people to floor it, cog it down one if necessary, on a slip-road in order to merge safely at traffic speed, and why this is safer, amuse and scare me in equal measure. :pac::pac::pac:

godtabh

I did a lot of driving in California a couple of weeks ago. A lot of the freeways have metered access points. Traffic was still bad on the freeway but i was never held up for too long on the ramp

sunnysoutheast

I used to use the M4 in England a lot and they do work.

I think we will start to see a lot more "managed motorway" road engineering soon. The restricted speed and lane changing on the M25 works well too.

ironclaw

sunnysoutheast wrote: »

I used to use the M4 in England a lot and they do work.

I think we will start to see a lot more "managed motorway" road engineering soon. The restricted speed and lane changing on the M25 works well too.

M50 should be a variable speed road. 100km/h in the day and 120km/h at night. I also believe lane 3 should have sections where you can't exit it i.e. You must enter lane 2 or 1 before a set of junctions if you intend to exit. Express lanes in the US and Canada work very well.

Special Circumstances

jimgoose wrote: »

The blank, sometimes terrified, looks I get when instructing some people to floor it, cog it down one if necessary, on a slip-road in order to merge safely at traffic speed, and why this is safer, amuse and scare me in equal measure. :pac::pac::pac:

SHPEEEEED KIIIIILLLLSSS!

glynf

Even with ramp meters installed, guaranteed the same idiots that merge at 60-80kph and make a beeline to the overtaking lane to reach the lofty velocity of 90kph (because of course, slower is safer... ) will manage to render any smoother traffic flow gained useless.

sunnysoutheast

ironclaw wrote: »

M50 should be a variable speed road. 100km/h in the day and 120km/h at night. I also believe lane 3 should have sections where you can't exit it i.e. You must enter lane 2 or 1 before a set of junctions if you intend to exit. Express lanes in the US and Canada work very well.

I think there is/was a proposal to make the M50 speed variant dependent on traffic levels isn't there? I had to use M25 Surrey stretch for a few months and it was managed down to 30MPH on many occasions, but we were all still moving at least. When there is no real incentive to change lanes there is a lot less unnecessary switching too which de-stressed the driving experience (a bit!).

Alun

The problem is that if they were forced to stop at a light, they'd then attempt to join the motorway at even lower speeds than before, making the problem worse rather than better.

R.O.R

There is ramp metering at the start of the M50. Joining the Motorway from Whitehall, next to the Port Tunnel (I'm fairly certain this is technically M50, but most people will know it as the M1).

It's there mainly so the traffic doesn't back up in to the Port Tunnel if there's heavy traffic ahead. Used to get stuck there a few times when I came through town in the evenings, heading north.

I don't think the road structure around the busy junctions would be able to deal with it though. While it would improve traffic flow on the Motorway, it would make an unholy mess to all road leading on to the motorway.

mailforkev

A large part of the problem here is the asthmatic cars everyone drives.

The power just isn't there to floor it up to speed and merge like they do in the US.

Even a base model small hatchback over there has 150+ bhp.

There's also the crowd that seem to think that it's the traffic's responsibility to let them merge rather than their job to get up to speed ASAP and find a gap.

ironclaw

Alun wrote: »

The problem is that if they were forced to stop at a light, they'd then attempt to join the motorway at even lower speeds than before, making the problem worse rather than better.

At peak times, the average speed for the M50 is usually around 80 / 90 so that's not a huge issue. Your not joining traffic moving at 120. You also are reducing the amount of people trying to merge at one time. Look at the Red Cow South Bound now with Newlandscross open, you have a line of traffic running down the merging lane in the right. 6 cars into a single M50 lane does not go. Reduce this by half with 3 cars per light and you would definitely reduce congestion.

mailforkev wrote: »

A large part of the problem here is the asthmatic cars everyone drives.

The power just isn't there to floor it up to speed and merge like they do in the US.

Even a base model small hatchback over there has 150+ bhp.

Any car on the road is capable of getting up to rush hour speed in the length of a ramp. I feel generally people give it some welly off the lights anyway. Again, we're talking about low speed rush hour traffic, not 120km/h.

Del2005

mailforkev wrote: »

A large part of the problem here is the asthmatic cars everyone drives.

The power just isn't there to floor it up to speed and merge like they do in the US.

Even a base model small hatchback over there has 150+ bhp.

There's also the crowd that seem to think that it's the traffic's responsibility to let them merge rather than their job to get up to speed ASAP and find a gap.

Even with 150+bhp the Yank tanks are slower than our cars, if you use the right pedal properly with gears most cars will get to rush hour motorway speed on the ramps. It's just people have been told by the RSA that speed kills, not inappropriate speed, so they think that they are safe going slower than the other traffic already on the road!

challengemaster

I'd be willing to bet they'd be left on flashing amber (ie. merge if safe to do so) if they were installed.