Should we use a single colour for all directional signage in the UK?

[Richard_Fairhurst]

Ah, so now we're reintroducing blue bordered signs too. That's a much bigger and more fundamental change.

I think Guildford was a big step backwards, so yes! (But I don't have any expectation that it'll happen, and to be honest nor should it, as there are much better things to spend money on...)

[Chris Bertram]

It certainly seems to be the case that in more recent times, the prefix of a road is not that important compared with who is in charge of maintaining it, i.e. whether or not the road is maintained at local authority level. From an administrative point of view replacing the numbers of all the A roads that use white signage with B numbers would make sense. I'm aware that in theory this would result in a much reduced presence of A roads/motorways when compared with B roads. But in Great Britain the A road:B road ratio is approximately 1:2 (~1800 A roads and over 3200 B roads) which, compared with the class I equivalents in various countries, is in actuality quite favourable with respect to the class I side of the ratio. So, on an international level it would not be that unusual to have so few designated top level routes. Using the Republic of Ireland as an example, there are only 66 N roads and almost 700 R roads, so there are approximately 10 R roads for every single N road. The RoI road signs also reflect these classifications this in their colouring.

We have the complication of A roads being split into primary and non-primary versions (and of course a single A road can be both over the full length of its route). So comparing the ratio of A roads to B roads is not telling the full tale - I think we'd need to look at the ratio of primary A roads:non-primary A roads:B roads to get this. Maybe our primary routes should have "N" numbers or something like that, as it stands we have a bit of a typical British muddle, and both mapmakers and sign designers can get confused about which A roads need green lines and signs and which red lines/white signs, not helped by both government and local highway authorities being uncertain themselves.

Incidentally, Ireland classifies N1-N50 as primary and N51-N99 as secondary, the latter appearing as red lines rather than green on the maps, but they all get green signs (yes, I know not all the numbers are taken).

[Euan]

Indeed maps often disagree with how some roads should be presented. An example being the A93 which was firstly shown in red on OS maps, then more recently it was shown in green for a few years before reverting back to red. This is despite the fact that the A93 has never been a trunk road and on the ground all signs are white as you would expect for a "red" road.

[jgharston]

Indeed maps often disagree with how some roads should be presented. An example being the A93 which was firstly shown in red on OS maps, then more recently it was shown in green for a few years before reverting back to red. This is despite the fact that the A93 has never been a trunk road and on the ground all signs are white as you would expect for a "red" road.

I just wish that all A roads were coloured red on the map, as my eyes can hardly tell the difference between a green road and whatever the name of the colour is for a B road.

[Arcuarius]

There is a fourth possibility (albeit never used on the roads other than possibly in error) - use the appropriate colour for the road being signed. A sign to a non-primary B-road would be white with black text, regardless of the nature of the road on which the sign is physically situated.

That's not in error - LTN 1/94 (we really should be given more up-to-date guidance on this) states that if you're on a primary route, and you encounter a slip road leading wholly to non-primary routes, the signing at the diverge should be white. A slip road on a primary route leading to any primary routes should be signed in green. However, if you're on a motorway, the diverge signing should always be blue, as if the slip road was a part of the motorway.

Many of the signs along the A14 for example are incorrect for this reason, though a lot of them date from pre-Guildford rules.

[brombeer]

As some other Sabristi have mentioned above, the different coloured signage should be retained because it is probably more important for navigational purposes than the actual numbers. When I'm driving a green-signed A-road, the green signage often makes it easier to see which exit I need at a roundabout where all the routes I don't want are signed in white. When I'm trying to get out of a city, it doesn't really matter whether the number on the signage says M1, M621, or M62; I tend to follow the blue patch(es), because I know that route will be the quickest to the motorway network.

This I consider the largest advantage of the use of colours for types of roads. And it survives even into this SatNav era, as the colours are very helpful in providing immediate confirmation of ways out. From that perspective, I had preferred a motorway signing system where, on each directional sign before a junction, you could have seen what type of road is actually exiting (so that'd be Guildford Rules for motorways).

Agree with what others say about the A-class being too broad, but in the end I believe that even the class of primary roads is way too diverse to maintain. If money and transition were no issue, I would have made M-routes and HQDCs blue, and all the rest green. When you are on a "green road" in that approach, you hardly need signs to show what's important. And important junctions tend to get more and bigger signs too to underline the same.

[roadtester]

It is not the case that American Signage is all the same.

While they all use the same basic style guide the application varies considerably from state to state.
Some as you say use a single large green sign with stickers but others use multiple separate signs on the same gantry and then there are 20 or so states that have implemented their own variations.

I really would not encourage this sort of mess
https://assets2.bigthink.com/system/ide ... 1457717730

In fact there is considerable discussion in the US around the whole issue as in many cases there are so many signs at a junction its hard to make sense of them all especially as can happen when two roads have the same number and you have a short period to decide if that is a Federal Highway Sign or a State Highway sign where the only distinguishing factor may be the shape of the shield and of course every State has its own style for that. In fact its rather hard to distinguish the stylised Ohio State Road Shield from a US Highway Shield especially in a snow storm at night !

Ohio had to renumber its State Road 40 as drivers kept confusing it with US 40 in the same region. It became Ohio 22 and while there is a US 22 its in another part of the State.

Interesting map showing the style of highway shields for each US state - certainly a lot of variety!

https://brilliantmaps.com/highway-marker-shields/

Lots of other interesting stuff on the brilliantmaps site.

[c2R]

Interesting map showing the style of highway shields for each US state - certainly a lot of variety!

https://brilliantmaps.com/highway-marker-shields/

Lots of other interesting stuff on the brilliantmaps site.

Yeah, I like that one - took a copy with us on our giant road trip around the US the other year to see which ones we could tick off!

[Al__S]

Should A-Roads in fact be split into three classifications? Trunk, Primary and Secondary? We could have a whole rainbow of sign colours and map lines!

[nowster]

How would they fit in the current colour palette? White, black, yellow, green, blue, brown, and red.

[Chris Bertram]

How would they fit in the current colour palette? White, black, yellow, green, blue, brown, and red.

"... I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow ..."

[Peter350]

Should A-Roads in fact be split into three classifications? Trunk, Primary and Secondary? We could have a whole rainbow of sign colours and map lines!

Way too costly to do now but if we were starting from scratch, it could work. Trunk roads could be prefixed with N, secondary A roads would become B roads while current B roads would become C roads and so on. Directional signage would be a single colour regardless of the classification to avoid having to replace it if a road gets upgraded or downgraded. As for additional line colours on maps, i’ve started a discussion about it here:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=40479

[Peter350]

The decision taken today not to designate the new A14 Cambridge - Huntingdon as motorway has reprised my interest in the original topic question.

The fact is, that stretch of expressway was ready way before schedule, yet the legal orders to make it a motorway were not. With green signage having to be used rather than blue, it was decided not to make that stretch of road the A14(M) after all. ALL FOR THE SAKE OF DIFFERENT COLOURED SIGNAGE

But if the UK had adopted a single colour such as green for all its directional signage regardless of the class of road, then perhaps that and many more stretches of HQDC would be motorway by now because we wouldn’t have to be wasting money on replacing it when the time comes to blue-line the route

[Johnathan404]

But if the UK had adopted a single colour such as green for all its directional signage regardless of the class of road, then perhaps that and many more stretches of HQDC would be motorway by now because we wouldn’t have to be wasting money on replacing it when the time comes to blue-line the route

This may well be true but what would the point be?

People often say they want HQDCs to be upgraded to motorway so that there is consistency. In practice this means "giving important roads the same type of signs". Changing the A14 to motorway would not have offered any numbering consistency or engineering consistency, and motorists are not going to notice the legal differences: the only visible difference would be in the road signs.

Now you are correct that if HQDCs and motorways had the same signs then that consistency will have already been achieved. So what would the benefit of an upgrade be?

The 'blue line on a map' test is becoming increasingly insignificant not just because of sat navs and online route finders, but also because nothing is stopping Google Maps highlighting the A14 as important if it wants to. Yet 'blue line on an old-fashioned map' remains the only benefit of your idea that motorists would notice, unless one is especially excited by the legal differences or especially attracted to the A14(M) number.

If we were to take your hypothetical situation where the new A14 has very similar signs to the proposed A14(M), the benefits would be so minor that I would not be so upset about it not happening.

[Vierwielen]

To me it seems self-evident that different colours help with navigation, but is there a point for euro-harmonisation of colours? Europe seems to have harmonsied on brown for tourist destinations, but the use of blue and greens varies considerably - to give a few example, the Swiss and the Italians use green to denote motorways and blue to denote principal non-motorways, Germany uses blue for motorways and yellow for main non-motorway directional signs, Poland uses blue for motorways and green for principal non-motorways. (Note - I have deliberately not included the UK or Ireland in this list).

[Alderpoint]

Does the average driver even realise there *are* different coloured signs? It's just a sign. It points to places. Colour? Irrelevent.

Especially with the new generation of drivers who just follow their SatNavs - they'd probably say to get rid of all directional signage as they don't see it serves any purpose.

[exiled]

Does the average driver even realise there *are* different coloured signs? It's just a sign. It points to places. Colour? Irrelevent.

Especially with the new generation of drivers who just follow their SatNavs - they'd probably say to get rid of all directional signage as they don't see it serves any purpose.

Actually for most drivers it does matter. And they notice. The hierarchy of colours does work.

The Netherlands only uses blue. At junctions this can quickly become confusing and counteracts the problem Belgium has due to language because in Belgium the green means you are heading to a motorway. That blue in the Netherlands could and is anywhere.

[Alderpoint]

Actually for most drivers it does matter. And they notice. The hierarchy of colours does work.

Evidence?

[Chris5156]

Now you are correct that if HQDCs and motorways had the same signs then that consistency will have already been achieved. So what would the benefit of an upgrade be?

At the risk of dragging us off topic - for me the argument about motorways and motorway-like A-roads has always been the inconsistency in who we allow on them. Motorways are statistically the safest type of road, and they are the safest because they are designed solely for fast motor traffic and all other road users are banned. That being the case, why on earth do we also persist in building other roads that are designed solely for fast motor traffic and then happily allow bicycles, tractors and ramblers on them? There is either a major safety benefit in banning non-motorway classes of traffic or there isn't, and we ought to be consistent in our approach to this type of road.

[Johnathan404]

At the risk of dragging us off topic - for me the argument about motorways and motorway-like A-roads has always been the inconsistency in who we allow on them. Motorways are statistically the safest type of road, and they are the safest because they are designed solely for fast motor traffic and all other road users are banned. That being the case, why on earth do we also persist in building other roads that are designed solely for fast motor traffic and then happily allow bicycles, tractors and ramblers on them? There is either a major safety benefit in banning non-motorway classes of traffic or there isn't, and we ought to be consistent in our approach to this type of road.

This is of course totally true and motorway regulations are the neatest way of solving that problem, but you don't need to make it motorway to solve that problem.

In the case of the A14(M) that sparked this conversation, almost all motorway regulations are going to be applied to the road anyway, so it's a bit of a moot point.