HL Deb 04 August 1971 vol 323 cc1242-53

7.18 p.m.

LORD ORR-EWING rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will give the necessary directions to ensure that full advantage is taken of the flexibility and other benefits afforded by the advanced traffic light systems in London and other large towns. The noble Lord said: My Lords, we have been discussing for some hours animals confined in stalls. I want to discuss in a few minutes human animals stalled in cars, in front of and frustrated by traffic lights. I must first apologise to the Minister in asking him to remain. As a Whip, he has probably spent more hours in this Chamber in this past very arduous Session than almost any other of your Lordships. I apologise for detaining him for even an extra few minutes, but I feel it is worth while spending a moment or two in considering whether we are making the optimum use of our roads; whether we are using traffic lights which give us the smoothest flow of traffic. There are some 12 million private cars on the roads of the United Kingdom and nearly 2 million commercial vehicles, and every person who drives a car or a commercial vehicle is interested in this subject. I would say that almost every taxpayer has an equal interest in the subject, because our road systems are very costly.

I suppose that all Members of your Lordships' House use a particular route more frequently than others, and if they are thinking about the matter they must also know of certain sets of traffic lights which leave them deeply frustrated because they appear either to be partly unserviceable or, alternatively, incorrectly adjusted. I think we can be proud of the British system of traffic lights because it is the only system which operates with a mat; and since the mat is actuated by a vehicle the light is adjusted automatically to the flow of the traffic. In the United States of America traffic lights are very carefully adjusted but they are on a fixed time cycle, which of course can vary according to the time of the day or the night.

In this country we have infinite flexibility, but I submit that we are not making the optimum use of the built-in flexibility. I get the impression that the old Ministry of Transport—now the Department of the Environment—is more interested in the engineering than in the science of traffic flow, and I have to confess that there are occasions when I feel that the police are more interested in parking offences up culs de sac than they are interested in traffic flow on our trunk roads. Road widening is extremely expensive, it is very much cheaper—and, incidentally, quicker—to make the optimum use of our existing road services. The figures I have discovered are that at the average light-controlled intersection the lights cost about £3,000. If you create a roundabout it will handle less traffic but it will cost about £30.000. If, in turn, you then come to a flyover, which may mean taking valuable buildings away, you have to multiply that figure again by ten, and you are probably in the area of £300,000 or more.

Curiously enough, although Britain had some of the earlier traffic light systems, this country now has very many fewer than most other highly developed countries. I have the figures for London, where there is one traffic light for every 7,000 inhabitants; in Hamburg, there is one traffic light for every 2,000. But I do not think this is a measurement of our efficiency. If the lights are well controlled, then the fewer traffic lights there are, the better. It is a fact that the number of controlled crossings in the whole of the United Kingdom is not as great as the number of controlled crossings in Manhattan Island alone. So there is a wide variation—although I concede, of course, that traffic in the United States is far denser than ours.

My first question, then, is: are we servicing the lights sufficiently often? I understand that service contracts are given to the two manufacturers of traffic lights in this country, and these contracts ask them to do preventive maintenance on the lights about once every three months. Of course they can be called out at police instigation when an obvious fault develops, but I still wonder whether this is the right rate of inspection. It is the rubber mat that gives the greatest trouble. The rubber mat was designed some 25 years ago, when traffic was much lighter in quantity and, of course, very much lighter in weight. In addition, we have a spillover of oil on our roads which also harms the rubber to a considerable extent. This consists of oil fumes and oil vapours.

As a result of this experience manufacturers in this country are progressively going over to an induction loop. Your Lordships will have seen some of them; they are buried in the tarmac of the road surface. But these are still suffering some teething troubles, although obviously the amount of maintenance needed should be much less. We must all have sat fuming in front of traffic lights when there has been an obvious fault; and when a fault develops the lights go over to an automatic fixed time cycle. This is why we sometimes find ourselves sitting in front of a red light with not a"sausage"in sight in any direction—cat, mouse, child, pedestrian or car. You sit there for hours while the traffic light ticks through its time cycle. I am told that the way to get this rectified is to report it to the police, and I would recommend that course to your Lordships. I should like to ask the Minister what percentage of the crossing lights have a fault of some sort or another in any one year. Secondly, how long is it before the fault is reported, and how long before it is corrected?

The second point I wish to raise is this: do local authorities spend enough—and it must be decentralised to them—in checking the systems to make sure that they have an optimum adjustment? This need not be expensive. Of course there are trained consultants who can be employed. I am not suggesting that local authorities should have a large staff to do this, but I am suggesting that people should he contracted to undertake this function. I would point out that anyhow in the school holidays there are many interesting observations which can be done, for a payment, by school children. I know of one case where a firm were doing a study and asked their apprentices to go out. It was a sunny day and the apprentices were absolutely delighted to go and check how traffic was flowing. That was part of the training of the mind, and they thoroughly enjoyed it. Students could also be employed on a holiday job in this way.

I have another question. Does the Minister think that the Road Research Laboratory are doing enough in regard to this question of traffic lights? Have the Ministry encouraged research into this question? They might found a traffic light Chair at some university. Are our technical colleges being encouraged to promote a study of traffic lights? What are we doing about tidal flow? I know that in recent years this system has been instituted on bridges over the Thames and on the whole it works admirably, but I wonder whether it could, with advantage, be extended. I have learned that the Manchester City Engineer estimated that by introducing tidal flow—that is to say, giving optimum inflow in the mornings for traffic going into the city and optimum outflow in the evening—he had saved, on a short length in Brook Street 500 yards long, £250,000 which would have had to be spent in construction. That was five years ago, and I imagine that if it were to-day the saving might well be £500,000. Here is a way of instituting tidal flow which is very largely used in the United States of America. I have seen in the United States on one occasion seven lanes in and only one lane out at certain times of the day. We do not seem to have done this in this country. Why not? It is a much better way of achieving a smooth traffic flow.

Then, we seem to be going slow on the introduction of computer control. This was tried in West London on the Cromwell Road, and from my experience in driving along the Cromwell Road it appears to work admirably. It has now been tried for some years: ought we not to extend it? It was disappoint-ting to find that the G.L.C. has given one contract to a West German firm for a set of 300 computer-controlled traffic lights. It is sad that it should have gone to West Germany, where there is a monopoly by one firm, whereas we have two competing firms in this country.

All noble Lords who are drivers know of some sets of badly adjusted traffic lights. Most of us know when we are approaching them and we find some way round. In my twenty years as Member for North Hendon I suppose I drove from Westminster to North Hendon six times a week—three times out and three times back—and as I live out in that direction I added that number of journeys as well. If I had to pick out one set of what I would call"rogue"traffic lights it would be on that road—and you must remember that it is an important road, because the road to Hendon is the main feed from M.1 and A.1 and A.41. Two of those roads are possibly the most important roads in the whole of Great Britain, so one would think that there, after vast sums of money have been spent in making it a road of three-lane traffic going North and three-lane traffic going South, with a central reserve, tremendous attention would have been given to make sure that the traffic lights were properly adjusted.

If I may mention one set of traffic lights that I would describe as a"rogue"set, it is the set at Arkwright Road on the East side, and Lymington Road on the West side. So far as I know, those lights have not been adjusted for two years, and all six lanes of traffic are brought to a halt, first while traffic filters in from Arkwright Road on the East and then while traffic is allowed in from Lymington Road on the West. Why the traffic cannot be allowed to flow across I cannot understand, but nothing seems to have been done about it. Your Lordships will know of one particularly bad bottleneck where some new traffic plan and some new lights are highly desirable; that is, at the southern exit out of Hyde Park at the Alexandra Gate. After you have crossed the Serpentine going South towards Kensington Road, there is almost invariably a pile-up of traffic which takes one up to 10 minutes, or during commuting hours up to 20 minutes, to get through. Before the War one used to be able to go in at the top of Queen's Gate, pass in front of the Albert Memorial and get through that way. Why has this route been closed? It was open for thirty years to my knowledge. Now it has been closed. Have not the traffic managers studied this way of relieving the bottleneck? There is also Kensington Palace Gardens—I know it has a number of Embassies in it. Perhaps it could be used as a one-way road—it is very wide—to relieve that tremendous bottleneck getting across the Park, which has to be done by Kensington Old Church Street, which is not a good road, narrow and twisty, or by Park Lane, right at the other end of the Park. Here again, I should have thought that some study could produce useful results.

What of the future? Ought we not to go in for computer-linked lights, as I have suggested? The average set of lights is probably between 15 and 20 years old, but the system is potentially efficient and potentially flexible. There is a small analogue computer in these traffic but have we the right programmer which will set the right programme on the computer? I suggest that we have not. What is being done to use what is called the arterial mode? This means that the main traffic road gets overriding priority and the lights are automatically green for that traffic unless a car appears at a side road. After seven seconds the lights go back to give overriding priority to the trunk road. I have seen it in one place only. Why is this system not used more universally?

I would summarise by saying that we have potentially the best and most advanced traffic light system for our big cities anywhere in the world. But I submit that we are not making the optimum use of it, partly because we are not servicing it sufficiently often, but more especially because we do not have enough people applying themselves to get optimum results. I hope that the Minister will be able to help me in this direction. In helping me he will be helping 12 million other motorists, and with less frustrated motorists there would be less accidents; they would be more content and would drive better as a result.

7.33 p.m.

LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON

My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend, Lord Orr-Ewing, for being kind enough to give me a little forewarning of some of the more technical questions that he was going to ask me. I assure him that I am more than happy getting the information to stay and answer his Question; it is a pleasure to do so; and in getting the information I have learned a lot myself.

The Department have aways encouraged, and where necessary instructed, local authorities to take advantage of traffic signals so as to ensure, so far as possible, that they work efficiently and reliably. The United Kingdom, as the noble Lord so rightly said, has potentially the most flexible traffic light system in the world, for as long ago as the early 1930s it was appreciated that fixed-time signals—that is to say, signals working on phases of fixed duration—were very inefficient in light traffic conditions. Development work on vehicle detector systems was encouraged, and in 1934 the Department decided that from that date all new traffic signal installations would be of the fully vehicle-actuated type. Thus for a number of years practically all the traffic signals in the United Kingdom have been fully vehicle-actuated and capable of adjusting their timings to take account of vehicle numbers.

As improvements on vehicle detection took place, so they were adopted by the Department, until in 1967 it became obvious that the surface type of vehicle detectors, which, as the noble Lord said, is known as the pneumatic mat, could no longer stand up to the acceleration and deceleration of modern traffic or to the weight and volume of present-day traffic. Development work was carried out within the Department, and a new system of detection was evolved which utilises loops of cable, buried beneath the carriageway surface, which are not subject to the wear and tear of traffic. These detectors are known as buried inductive loop detectors, and a system of vehicle detection using these detectors was developed known as"System D"detection. In 1968, the Department decided that all new traffic signal installations should use this new form of detection.

The noble Lord said there had been certain unsatisfactory teething troubles, and this is indeed the case. In the old days, when the system was first started, the slot, as it was called, was filled with black copper slag. Now we have a substance called epoxy resin which has managed to cut out this, and as a result the loop has much more stability. The loop method of vehicle detection is the only one now being used. I understand that the cost is not quite so high as the noble Lord indicated; I believe that it is about £1,800. It is used at the moment, I would guess, for about 10 per cent. of our traffic light controls in the country, which is a start. Obviously, these loops are very much more efficient than the old mat, which is now almost out of date, though we still have that with us.

It must be appreciated that to keep traffic signals working efficiently, adequate maintenance must be carried out. In nearly all cases maintenance is carried out for the local authorities by the traffic signal manufacturers within the terms of a formal contract. The basis of this contract was laid down in 1934, and since that time more and more facilities—I think about half a dozen—have been added to the traffic signals, and the wear-and-tear on them has increased considerably. Although the signal manufacturers carry out maintenance to as high a standard as they can within the sum of money received for the service, recent surveys have shown that at any one time over 50 per cent. of the traffic signals in the country have faults of varying severity—not a very happy figure, I agree. It is clear that the existing maintenance arrangements are insufficient to keep traffic signals working efficiently.

There has been a general decline in the standard of maintenance, and this has been aggravated since the direct grant to local authorities was removed in 1968. To-day, the responsibility for maintenance rests entirely on the local authorities. Some are exemplary: the G.L.C. is already forming its own inspectorate to check on signals; others do not appear to be giving maintenance quite the priority it requires. Many surface detectors are not replaced as they become worn out, and vehicle-actuated signals are often changed to the less satisfactory fixed-cycle type, with the result that technology is losing all the benefits of modern design and invention. This is a very sad state to have to confess to. It is a matter of cost. The signal companies have to come along every three months to do an investigation. With the mat type of detector, used in about 90 per cent. of signals, the cost of renewing the mat completely is allowed for only once in two years. In certain cases the mat may not last more than six months, if that. When the mat goes, all flexibility is lost and you go back to a fixed time light.

Over the past two years the Department has negotiated with the manufacturers of this traffic signal equipment for a new form of traffic signal maintenance, and at the present time discussions are taking place with local authority associations about the adoption of this better and more extensive form of maintenance. As I have said, inspection at the moment takes place about every three months, but under the new proposed maintenance arrangements local authorities would make their own inspections and report faults. These would have to be repaired by the signal companies within a specified time, and if they failed they would be penalised under this system. With this new contract, the signal companies will, in addition, carry out an annual overhaul of each traffic signal controller. Although the day-to-day operation of traffic signals is the responsibility of the local authority, any problems arising with them in the United Kingdom are dealt with by traffic engineers in the divisional road engineer's offices in England, and in the chief road engineer's offices in Scotland and Wales.

The noble Lord asked about the staff. The quality of the staff is of a very high standard, but there are too few to carry out surveys on the traffic signals in their respective divisions and to ascertain whether or not they are working correctly. That is in any case the responsibility of the local authorities. There are about thirty engineers and technical officers within the Department, but in addition there are staffs employed by local authorities dealing with traffic problems throughout the country. Salaries in the Department range from about £1,600 per annum to about £3.800 per annum. The Department, as such, has not created a Chair of traffic management at any university at this moment, but there are, of course, a number of universities and technical colleges who run traffic management courses. At this moment London University is co-operating with methods of calculating settings for traffic signals with the Road Research Laboratory, and this work is going on the whole time. The Department has published a book called Traffic Signals (the road research technical paper No. 56), which is filled with valuable advice for local authorities, and if local authorities wish for advice the technical officers of the Department are only too pleased to come and advise them.

The latest development in traffic signal control—as the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, said—is the use of computers to co-ordinate the traffic signals in an area to minimise delay within that area. Experiments with this form of control, known as"area traffic control ", were carried out both in West London and in Glasgow, as the noble Lord said, and the result of these experiments has shown that the benefits to traffic are considerable. He talked about tidal flow. Of course we in Britain generally have not yet got the road system which the noble Lord talked about in America, with five lane roads. They are still unheard of in Great Britain, but we have small starts in tidal flow, as can be seen over bridges over the Thames, where even now in the rush hours they flow different ways in the mornings and the evenings. The experiments that were carried out show that the evaluation of the saving in time is several times greater than the capital outlay in the first year. This is a fact. The results of these two experiments were so successful that a circular (Circular Roads 13/70) was issued to local authorities on May 27 last year, explaining the advantages of area traffic control and giving guidance as to the conditions where area traffic control would be beneficial. It offered a 75 per cent. grant towards those schemes which complied with certain criteria, and invited local authorities to make application for suitable schemes. Response so far has been very encouraging. At the present time 35 local authorities have made application for their areas to be considered.

The most advanced scheme is that for the Greater London Council Phase I, which will control 300 sets of traffic signals with a computer. Tenders have been accepted, and the Greater London Council have been informed that equipment will be delivered in the autumn of this year. It seems probable, therefore, that control of the signals will start to be exercised in the spring of next year. I nope that when the noble Lord motors about Hendon, and these other roads that he discussed, he will begin to see a marked improvement. Any particular points that he has mentioned in this debate will of course be looked at by my right honourable friend and the Department, and if they find anything of interest I will write to him with anything they may bring up. Of course, his advice is always most welcome.

The Department has been asked more than once to introduce the Continental system whereby during quiet traffic periods the traffic signals are switched out and replaced by a flashing amber light. This proposal has been resisted by the Department, because with fully vehicle actuated signals working properly there is no delay, and in the absence of opposing traffic a driver approaching a red signal should get a right of way almost immediately. Therefore, we come back to our old friend—lack of maintenance. But the signal equipment is not to blame if it is properly kept in order. This device is used on the Continent only because most Continental traffic signals work on a fixed-time cycle and this inevitably leads to delays in quiet traffic periods.

The Department is also asked from time to time to allow the use of a filtering movement into a stream of traffic which is running. This idea has been resisted because of the difficulties for pedestrians and the risk to vehicles unless they have clear visibility of the approaching traffic. Where it is considered possible to allow a filtering movement in safety, then a green arrow is shown which allows the filtering movement. We can think of several of these which have been installed recently. Alternatively, at sites where there is a heavy left turn a triangular island can be provided so that drivers can turn left in effect before they come to the red signal, and are then faced with a normal"Give way"sign. This is considered to be a better solution than permitting a filtering movement against a red signal.

At a number of junctions where a special pedestrian phase is provided, and which is called by a push button, local authorities have found an unwillingness by pedestrians to push the buttons. The noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, shakes her head, but in fact one of the Ministers of the Department went with some officials the other day and was given an example of this. There was a group of people waiting there, and not one of them was pressing the button. All were waiting for something to happen.

BARONESS PHILLIPS

My Lords, I must see these junctions where people are very busy pressing.

LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON

My Lords, in these cases they have had the traffic signal controller modified—the places where people do not seem to use them—so that the pedestrian phase comes in automatically on each cycle. This means that in quiet periods the pedestrian phase appears when there are no pedestrians requiring it. The local authorities obviously have to strike a balance between the difficulties caused by pedestrians not pushing the buttons, and the delay to traffic at light traffic periods.

LORD ORR-EWING

My Lords, people are not reticent to push the button on their television sets, and would it not be better to encourage them to push the button on pedestrian signals rather than handicap all traffic as a result of their present reported reluctance?

LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON

My Lords, the more we can get that view over the happier the Department will be. It would be far cheaper for the Department to keep traffic flowing smoothly. The time lost by people costs money, so business tells us, and cost analysis shows us this. So the more the noble Lord can get this point across to his friends, and everybody else, the better we shall be pleased. It has to be borne in mind, also, that all-red periods are sometimes included in traffic signal phases for reasons other than assisting pedestrians. They have to be used, for example, at wide junctions to permit adequate clearance periods at the change of phases. Also, where a right-turning movement is difficult an all-red period is occasionally provided to assist right-turners to clear at the end of the phase.

I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing for giving me this opportunity to talk about some of the facilities available with traffic signals, and about some of the problems that are encountered in their use. I hope that what I have said will have shown that the traffic signal equipment used in the country to-day is capable of handling traffic safely and with the minimum of delay. I have talked about the importance of the maintenance factor and, I cannot emphasise too strongly that the savings in delay to traffic by having traffic signals working correctly are very large; therefore good maintenance is essential.