IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

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csd
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IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

Post by csd »

The M50 is getting an upgrade to active lane control with variable speed limits - see Irish Times article here.

The new VMS's have started to go up on the section between the N3 (J6) and the M1 (J3).

1. Approaching J5. The sign gantry has had lane control signs and the VMS on the left fitted in the last month or so.
ImageIMG_0377 by csd75, on Flickr

2. Another type, this time without the direction signage.
ImageIMG_0371 by csd75, on Flickr

3. The final type. These gantries date from the 2010 upgrade, but have only had the VMS's added in the last month or so.
ImageIMG_0368 by csd75, on Flickr

4. Bonus shot 1: the M50 mainline at J6 (looking south).
ImageDJI_0227 by csd75, on Flickr

5. Bonus shot 2: Sligo - Dublin train crossing the M50 at J6.
ImageDJI_0265 by csd75, on Flickr

/csd
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Bryn666
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Re: IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

Post by Bryn666 »

Brilliant photos, and will be interesting to see how ROI deals with dynamic traffic management and if any lessons have been learned from the rocky British experience.
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odlum
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Re: IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

Post by odlum »

Interesting. About time, been waiting years. At least they are not going down the route of replacing the hard shoulder with a lane. I was concerned it would catch on here as a cheap way of adding a lane and lead to un-needed disruption. It's there for a reason.
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jervi
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Re: IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

Post by jervi »

odlum wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 12:49 Interesting. About time, been waiting years. At least they are not going down the route of replacing the hard shoulder with a lane. I was concerned it would catch on here as a cheap way of adding a lane and lead to un-needed disruption. It's there for a reason.
Your Irish Motorway shoulders are not as wide the the UK's so removing the hard shoulder for an extra lane is much more difficult since the carriageway would require widening anyway. And at that point you may just as well widen the carriageway to include a shoulder too.
The alternative would be having narrower lanes which isn't very suitable for human drivers at current speeds. Maybe in a few decades time when all of driving (on motorways at least) is automated it will be 4 lanes with no shoulder but only time will tell.
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Enceladus
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Re: IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

Post by Enceladus »

There had been a medium to long-term plan, after the 2006-2010 major capacity upgrade of the M50 motorway - which involved widening and converting many of the major interchanges to free-flow - to manage future traffic increases by some type of active capacity management, and here it is.

It will take some bedding in and will experience teething difficulties for sure, as us Irish drivers aren’t used to variable speed limits.

Better traffic policing of some of the idiotic, careless and sometimes reckless driving on the M50 wouldn’t go amiss either! :driving: :driving: :hammer:

For the record, I grew up in the leafy Dublin suburb of Castleknock, only about 1.5 kilometres from the complex J6 Blanchardstown N3 interchange featured in the first post, which involved putting the 220 year old Royal Canal into an aqueduct to cross the junction. :)
Last edited by Enceladus on Tue May 11, 2021 19:22, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

Post by AndyB »

Interesting that they have opted not to use AMIs, instead choosing what is presumably a single multi-colour square LED matrix
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A303Chris
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Re: IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

Post by A303Chris »

I like this quote from the article
However he said the M50 would not be utilising the hard shoulder for traffic flow, as this had been shown to be a mistake abroad, leading to problems for emergency services in other countries.
How many other countries have done this, thought we were the only one.
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Re: IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

Post by SirKnoes »

A303Chris wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 13:18 I like this quote from the article
However he said the M50 would not be utilising the hard shoulder for traffic flow, as this had been shown to be a mistake abroad, leading to problems for emergency services in other countries.
How many other countries have done this, thought we were the only one.
A section of the A50 in the Netherlands between Arnhem and Apeldoorn appears to use hard shoulder running. That’s the only one I know of
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Re: IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

Post by Chris_533976 »

A303Chris wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 13:18 I like this quote from the article
However he said the M50 would not be utilising the hard shoulder for traffic flow, as this had been shown to be a mistake abroad, leading to problems for emergency services in other countries.
How many other countries have done this, thought we were the only one.
With the widening of the M50 back in the 2010s, some bridges weren't widened, so its not quite as easy as the hard shoulder is missing in places.

I hope this dynamic motorway works, but unless they enforce the speed limits, the whole thing will be totally ignored and there will be loads of crashes as the few poor souls obeying the speed limit will be rear-ended.
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Bryn666
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Re: IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

Post by Bryn666 »

SirKnoes wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 17:46
A303Chris wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 13:18 I like this quote from the article
However he said the M50 would not be utilising the hard shoulder for traffic flow, as this had been shown to be a mistake abroad, leading to problems for emergency services in other countries.
How many other countries have done this, thought we were the only one.
A section of the A50 in the Netherlands between Arnhem and Apeldoorn appears to use hard shoulder running. That’s the only one I know of
Dutch motorways also have "plus lanes" which are usually on the central reserve side. They're an oddity, being about 3m wide and restricted purely to cars.

https://www.wegenwiki.nl/Spitsstrook#Sp ... in_bedrijf
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Chris5156
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Re: IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

Post by Chris5156 »

SirKnoes wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 17:46
A303Chris wrote: Mon May 10, 2021 13:18 How many other countries have done this, thought we were the only one.
A section of the A50 in the Netherlands between Arnhem and Apeldoorn appears to use hard shoulder running. That’s the only one I know of
The A99 near Munich has operated with part time hard shoulder running since the 1980s, or possibly even the 70s. There are also examples in the US and Netherlands which were given as examples back in 2006 when the M42 ATM pilot scheme was happening.
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Re: IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

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KrisW
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Re: IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

Post by KrisW »

Germany introduced part-time hard-shoulder running in 2002 The signage is shown here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildtafel ... _2013#2002 The signs also have the text "Seitenstreifen befahren/Seitenstreifen räumen/Seitenstreifen nicht mehr befahren" ("Drive on hard shoulder", "Vacate hard shoulder", "Cease driving on hard shoulder") written underneath as appropriate.

Hard-shoulder running on M50 isn't really possible, given that the busiest section of the road, the Liffey Valley bridge, doesn't have any hard shoulders at all. However, variable speed limits will do a lot to address congestion caused by traffic weaving.
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Re: IRL: M50 'dynamic motorway' upgrade

Post by odlum »

They are resurfacing the mainline entirely on the western side including the ff slip roads between junctions 7 and 9 I saw today. But there are still a lot of info signs to go in on that stretch. I presume that implies all ground works are complete there and they'll presumably resurface other parts too. The route is in remarkable shape given the traffic volumes (most of it doesn't need a major resurfacing so I was a bit surprised).

Edit: Works are marked here...

https://www.m50concession.com/planned-road-works/
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