M42 Active Traffic Management
Highways Agency & Mouchel Parkman
BACKGROUND
The Highways Agency (HA) wanted to demonstrate that it was possible make better use of the existing M42 road infrastructure through combining new technologies with well-known traffic management techniques, such as: variable speed limits, hard shoulder running, variable message signs and CCTV monitoring.
The scheme, called Active Traffic Management, is between junctions 3A and 7 and directs drivers to use the hard shoulder during times of peak congestion using electronic signs above each lane. Together with variable speed limits, which help smooth the flow of traffic, the scheme has had great success in reducing congestion on the M42.
Safety was of critical importance during the design of the scheme and emergency refuge areas are provided at regular intervals to provide motorists with a safe place to stop away from the traffic in the event of problems with their vehicle. These refuge areas are linked by telephone and CCTV cameras to the nearby regional control centre.
PROJECT
CCD worked with Mouchel Parkman for the Highways Agency. CCDs role was to provide Human Factors support across all streams of the project including:
- Control room operator workload assessments
- Control operations process definition
- Control and information systems integration
- On-road traffic officer operations
- Quantifying driver stress and potential problems drivers might have with perception and comprehension of Active Traffic Management (ATM) systems
- Design input to the user interface for the CCTV based monitoring and control system for opening the hard shoulder
- Establishing effective measures of human reliability with CCTV based operations.
IMPLEMENTATION
CCD played a significant role in developing the technical process by which the motorway is controlled and the process through which the hard shoulder is opened to traffic, managed during hard shoulder running and systematically closed. CCD defined the requirements for the CCTV systems to ensure that it would be appropriate for the specified tasks.
To support the design activities CCD developed and conducted an extensive user trial to determine potential operator reliability when performing specific CCTV based tasks and the best methods for presenting and controlling the CCTV imagery to enable safe and accurate monitoring of the hard shoulder.
OUTCOMES
As the project developed CCD were able to demonstrate to the HA that by integrating the display of the hard shoulder control system with that of the normal motorway signal control system, operator reliability could be significantly improved and importantly, that neither a separate dedicated ATM control room nor a wholly separate ATM control system would be required; operation was thus successfully integrated within a parallel HA project to developed the Midlands Regional Control Centre. The Highways Agency have been utilising hard shoulder running safely and successfully on the M42 for a number of years to increase capacity and alleviate congestion during peak hours.