Pointless motorway overhead messages

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ManomayLR
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

Post by ManomayLR »

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Barkstar
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

Post by Barkstar »

EpicChef wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 11:13
I just wish more drivers were aware that VSL is working when the limit seems unnecessary.

I'm sure many ignore the VSL when they're in a rush and things are seemingly clear. But every time that happens, the queue forms. Inevitably.
I wholly agree with this though on a few occasions coming back over the M62 from Leeds in the later evening there'd be a limit reduction to 60mph despite it being very quiet. From what I understand the system is triggered by detecting reduced average traffic speeds - it needn't be an incident per se . So it would seem the system is to a degree dumb, in that it goes through a set of procedures regardless of the volume of approaching traffic.
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the cheesecake man
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

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This morning on the M1 heading north towards junction 37:

A628 WOODHEAD
FRIDAY 9 APRIL

What about it? :confused: Is it going to be closed? Or festooned with roadworks? Or just very busy? Or something completely different? Just for the day? At what times? Why? Is it related to the "Night Closure 6-9 April" messages which have been common in the area recently?

Why would be anybody be heading to Woodhead Pass be on the M1 here anyway?
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Matthew
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

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the cheesecake man wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 12:59 This morning on the M1 heading north towards junction 37:

A628 WOODHEAD
FRIDAY 9 APRIL
This legend should be changed in a bit.
Opinion is purely my own and all those other exceptions and excuses.
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Bryn666
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

Post by Bryn666 »

Very useful messages this week related to separate traffic incidents:

M62 J12-11
LANES CLOSED
DUE TO ACCIDENT

M56 AFTER J15
CLOSED DUE
TO ACCIDENT

This is exactly what you want to know, it tells you why you're about to join a painful queue and therefore decide to avoid it.
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the cheesecake man
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

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Matthew wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 14:48
the cheesecake man wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 12:59 This morning on the M1 heading north towards junction 37:

A628 WOODHEAD
FRIDAY 9 APRIL
This legend should be changed in a bit.
Returning south towards junction 37 on Thursday evening the same message was displayed but crucially on the next sign
was

A628 WOODHEAD
NIGHT CLOSURE

so together actually gets the information across, and was being shown to traffic heading towards the road referred to. One of the two shown to traffic heading in a different directions was an ineffective waste of pixels.
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Matthew
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

Post by Matthew »

Where legends work together as one I tend to call "paired messages".

They can usually work but, should one go, it's important that the remaining legend still makes sense.

For example:

M48 BRIDGE|CLOSED

FOR S WALES|USE M4

If this is still not quite right, I'll chase.
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

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On the southbound M1 this morning there were time and distance messages to Wembley. There is a football match on at Wembley this afternoon. It's Brentford against Swansea.

How many of those teams' fans are travelling from north of Northampton? Not many I would wager.

Maybe something else is on around there? I was assuming the sign meant the stadium, because the M1 doesn't go to Wembley.
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

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Big L wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 12:34 On the southbound M1 this morning there were time and distance messages to Wembley. There is a football match on at Wembley this afternoon. It's Brentford against Swansea.

How many of those teams' fans are travelling from north of Northampton? Not many I would wager.

Maybe something else is on around there? I was assuming the sign meant the stadium, because the M1 doesn't go to Wembley.
Wembley isn’t far from the M1 terminus on the N Circular...
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

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Big L wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 12:34 On the southbound M1 this morning there were time and distance messages to Wembley. There is a football match on at Wembley this afternoon. It's Brentford against Swansea.

How many of those teams' fans are travelling from north of Northampton? Not many I would wager.

Maybe something else is on around there? I was assuming the sign meant the stadium, because the M1 doesn't go to Wembley.
It's easier to give warning of all events at Wembley than to pick and choose on the small possibility that one event will not affect that area. Get it wrong once and we'd never forget it.

It also gives warning to those going near Wembley that there may be local congestion and to choose another route.
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

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On a mobile VMS on the M56, so not strictly overhead, but definitely a message, certainly on a motorway, and IMHO pointless:
You are now leaving the roadworks
The contraflow traffic has returned to the correct side, the cones have gone, there is no more machinery, there are no longer any road workers in sight, the lane positions have returned to normal, free recovery has ended, speed limit has returned to NSL, average speed check has finished, in fact everything on the motorway has returned to normal. Isn't that enough clues?
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

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the cheesecake man wrote: Sat Jun 26, 2021 13:37 On a mobile VMS on the M56, so not strictly overhead, but definitely a message, certainly on a motorway, and IMHO pointless:
You are now leaving the roadworks
The contraflow traffic has returned to the correct side, the cones have gone, there is no more machinery, there are no longer any road workers in sight, the lane positions have returned to normal, free recovery has ended, speed limit has returned to NSL, average speed check has finished, in fact everything on the motorway has returned to normal. Isn't that enough clues?
For those who haven’t realized by now, Highways England have a knack for stating the blindingly obvious.
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

Post by Bryn666 »

EpicChef wrote: Sat Jun 26, 2021 13:40
the cheesecake man wrote: Sat Jun 26, 2021 13:37 On a mobile VMS on the M56, so not strictly overhead, but definitely a message, certainly on a motorway, and IMHO pointless:
You are now leaving the roadworks
The contraflow traffic has returned to the correct side, the cones have gone, there is no more machinery, there are no longer any road workers in sight, the lane positions have returned to normal, free recovery has ended, speed limit has returned to NSL, average speed check has finished, in fact everything on the motorway has returned to normal. Isn't that enough clues?
For those who haven’t realized by now, Highways England have a knack for stating the blindingly obvious.
Temporary Traffic Management innovation again, or as the rest of us call it, wasting taxpayers' money.
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

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I've seen three separate instances recently of a 4-lane motorway (or in one case, 3+dynamic hard shoulder) being reduced to its rightmost lane.

The VMS for this seems to use ↘ ↘ ↘ 40 for two gantries followed by × × × 40, followed by a taper made of cones. When ROTTMS is in use as well, it generally shows T T T ↑ with a distance. There's normally something along the lines of ↘ ↘ 50 50 preceding it, but details vary.

This combination, unfortunately, seems to have fairly terrible effects on traffic flow: most vehicles obey the signs and move into the rightmost lane at 40 (actually, typically more like 10-20), whereas a significant minority will use the other lanes and try to muscle their way in later on (about half of those go under the red X and try to merge at the cones, whereas the other half will obey the red X and try to force their way in earlier).

I would have expected something like this to work better:

↘ 60 60 60
× ↘ 50 50
× × ↘ 40 (in parallel with T T T ↑ on ROTTMS, counting down to the exact location of the closure)

followed by the physical closure of the lanes. I think it's correct to not use a mandatory closure of the third lane until it actually closes – this would enable people to make a more informed decision about when to merge. I also think it's correct to mandatory-close the first and second lanes earlier, so that nobody is put in the situation of having to suddenly shoot across three lanes to avoid a red X.

Additionally, two out of three closures were very bad at cancelling the red Xs, and the 40 limit, after the works had ended. It would likely make the most sense for a blank AMI / blank MS4 to remove any legal restrictions, allowing people to use their own judgement as to whether the closure had ended. (That said, there was some evidence that a significant portion of the AMIs/MS4s were malfunctioning, which may have been what prompted the roadworks in the first place.)
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

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Not an overhead message, but MS1/MS4 speed indications being left on, on the M32, is really starting to grind my gears. I am weekly seeing 50mph or 60mph alerts on the MS1s, particularly on the J3 slips, left on for days at a time. At this point drivers are forced to ignore them as they just constantly 'cry wolf'. If it is that hard for the RCC to manage the system and spot sign aspect anomalies, they need a new interface, badly.
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

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Perhaps it may be an idea to report it so that if there is a problem it can be investigated? If it has been "left on for days" then I'd suggest there's an error that's not obvious to them.
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

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Matthew wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 07:31 Perhaps it may be an idea to report it so that if there is a problem it can be investigated? If it has been "left on for days" then I'd suggest there's an error that's not obvious to them.
That is a fair point. They tend to be quite flexible in the SW, even replying to reports on Twitter.
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

Post by JammyDodge »

Not an overhead message, but a road work sign on the M3, near the M27 stated:

Upgrading to Motorway

Obviously meant to have smart in there somewhere
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

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JammyDodge wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 21:56 Not an overhead message, but a road work sign on the M3, near the M27 stated:

Upgrading to Motorway

Obviously meant to have smart in there somewhere
oooh! is the A27 near the M27 finally being upgraded???
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Re: Pointless motorway overhead messages

Post by ais523 »

Not so much "pointless", but I spotted a war going on with the overhead messages on the M6 recently, on the northbound approach to J3A, and thought it would be a good fit for this thread.

National Highways' signs were saying M6 J8-10 20 MIN DELAY. Fair enough.
Midland Expressway Limited's signs were saying M6 J9-10 LONG DELAYS M6 TOLL CLEAR.

Given that "long delays" means at least 30 minutes (according to the official guidelines), we therefore had a disagreement between the companies as to how long the delays were (and therefore, presumably, how important it was to use the M6 Toll to avoid them). It looked very much like the two companies were arguing with each other about how long the delays were (although because National Highways has more VMSes along there, they got both the first and the last word in it). Both companies' signs were consistent about the delay length, so it's unlikely that it was varying over time – it was just a disagreement about how important it was to avoid it.

Intermixed with all these were some National Highways signs warning that Norton Canes non-lorry petrol station had run out of diesel, which in context, looked like another attempt to take a jab at MEL (although, of course, this would be important safety information for the drivers of any diesel cars which were running low on fuel and planning to refuel there, so it made sense to display it there).
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