§ Mr. Onslowasked the Secretary of State for Transport if he is now able to announce the details of the change to automated collection of traffic data mentioned in his reply on 18 February, Official Report, c. 170.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeI have now approved the introduction of automatic equipment at fixed sites which will replace almost all regular monthly manual counting274W of vehicles in the Department's national traffic monitoring programme. This will replace men sitting in roadside cabins by automatic machines and it will also reduce by a third the total number of places at which these regular counts take place.
The new equipment will be installed at 90 sites in England between 1983 and 1986. The gross costs of this—about £1 million—should be offset by savings on manual counting by the end of 1988. After that I expect net savings of about £400,000 each year.
There will be staff savings equivalent to five full-time posts in the Department once the new system is operational, representing an annual net saving of about £25,000. For local authorities, which now provide the staff needed for manual counting, there will be a reduction in the effort devoted to manual counting equivalent to at least 250 full-time staff. I understand that similar steps are being taken to automate traffic counting in Scotland and Wales.
The new equipment—prototypes of which are being developed at TRRL—enables traffic flow to be classified by type of vehicle. It also enables average speeds to be calculated; and it is hoped eventually to be able to classify traffic by axle-weight. The equipment is likely to have export potential for British companies, as it is considerably in advance of anything used for traffic counting in other countries. TRRL and Department of Transport headquarters staff who have developed the new system are to be congratulated on their work and the savings that will result from it.