Signage Rethinks

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hemsl
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Re: Signage Rethinks

Post by hemsl »

Bomag wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 17:01 In most cases the replacement of 'London' with 'M25' fits in with both what is on DfT website and the hierarchy of signing identified in the draft IAN. For the M40 the destinations south of Banbury would be M25, Reading*, Oxford

Reading would be based on traffic flows even if it is not directly on the route. Otherwise High Wycombe or Beaconsfield could be subbed.
I have not studied traffic flows, but I find it difficult to believe that more traffic would be heading to Reading (population 220k) than London (population 9m) — or, at best, that there would be so much more traffic heading to Reading so as to make London irrelevant.

I fear we are stuck on an insistence to define London in the most narrow way possible (Westminster? The City?), rather than the broader definition of London, encompassing 9m residents, that people would generally have in mind when joining a motorway at Banbury.
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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hemsl wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 08:08
Bomag wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 17:01 In most cases the replacement of 'London' with 'M25' fits in with both what is on DfT website and the hierarchy of signing identified in the draft IAN. For the M40 the destinations south of Banbury would be M25, Reading*, Oxford

Reading would be based on traffic flows even if it is not directly on the route. Otherwise High Wycombe or Beaconsfield could be subbed.
I have not studied traffic flows,
The devil is in the detail - from memory on the M40 the flow outside M25 ~130kAADT inside M25 ~100kAADT - there is so much traffic turning off the M40 towards Heathrow or Watford that it was able to be reduced down to 2 lanes through the M25 junction. There is significant traffic joining the M40 into London so the numbers using the M40 through the M25 junction may well be quite low (say 50k?) which is the minor portion of the traffic on the M40 and so a justification can easily be made for the omission of London which in the M40's case moves to a specific local identifier of Uxbridge and London (W) approaching the M25.
hemsl wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 08:08but I find it difficult to believe that more traffic would be heading to Reading (population 220k) than London (population 9m) — or, at best, that there would be so much more traffic heading to Reading so as to make London irrelevant.
Not irrelevant, but there is significant flow to other destinations in the SE region (Channel Tunnel, Gatwick, Heathrow, Hammersmith, Watford etc) that reducing London to a single amorphous blob does no one any favours.
hemsl wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 08:08I fear we are stuck on an insistence to define London in the most narrow way possible (Westminster? The City?), rather than the broader definition of London, encompassing 9m residents, that people would generally have in mind when joining a motorway at Banbury.
Yes people are heading in the direction of "London", but very soon they need to make decisions - M25 CW or ACW or stay on M40 - a simple wayfinding strategy ideally giving more detail as you get closer with binary decision points is what is needed and what seems to have been proposed.
i.e. on M40 - decision M25 or M40?
M25 - Watford or Heathrow?
Heathrow T1&T3 or T4&T5 on M25 approaching the M4
Heathrow approaching T4&T5 (J14 & spur) for T4 use J14 not T5 spur etc.
each decision flows from the last and London as a blob doesn't come into it other than as a substitute for an initial "head onto the M1/M40/M11/M4/M3 etc to the M25" from a long distance away.
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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RichardA35 wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 08:57 ... London as a blob doesn't come into it other than as a substitute for an initial "head onto the M1/M40/M11/M4/M3 etc to the M25" from a long distance away.
As someone from The NORTH WEST, the fine grained nature of London boroughs is irrelevant for the purposes of route finding unless I'm actually going to one of them.

London is a hub city for the road network, even if most folks bypass it on the M25 most of the time.

How many Londoners care about the distinction between Ankh and Morpork Manchester and Salford?

Or even the various council areas of Greater Manchester, some of which are well outside the M60?
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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nowster wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 10:34
RichardA35 wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 08:57 ... London as a blob doesn't come into it other than as a substitute for an initial "head onto the M1/M40/M11/M4/M3 etc to the M25" from a long distance away.
As someone from The NORTH WEST, the fine grained nature of London boroughs is irrelevant for the purposes of route finding unless I'm actually going to one of them.

London is a hub city for the road network, even if most folks bypass it on the M25 most of the time.

How many Londoners care about the distinction between Ankh and Morpork Manchester and Salford?

Or even the various council areas of Greater Manchester, some of which are well outside the M60?
But from the North West, Birmingham is used as a destination to point people southwards, not London (i.e. M56/A556, M62/M6, A500/M6, M54/M6) until approaching the M6/M5 split where the M40 & M6 alternatives are signed.
I can understand the reasoning behind trying to omit London but a good substitute is needed for this blob that is easily recognisable especially for the infrequent traveller.

The M1 A14 split has THE SOUTH, London, Northampton - it would probably lose nothing by omitting London and the M1 M25 split has London directed along the M1 where Heathrow, Stansted, Watford, Dartford are signed so this point of introduction (of London) would work fine with no great loss of granularity for the rest of the country.
It feels like it is only a familiar sentimentality of "all roads lead to London" type argument and our intellectual laziness that keeps London as a place in our minds for wayfinding purposes when we really mean "head south" when we are going to Wembley Stadium, Heathrow Airport, Dartford Crossing, Channel Tunnel etc.
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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RichardA35 wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 11:07 But from the North West, Birmingham is used as a destination to point people southwards, not London (i.e. M56/A556, M62/M6, A500/M6, M54/M6) until approaching the M6/M5 split where the M40 & M6 alternatives are signed.
Nothing in Scotland is signed until Penrith on the M6, either.
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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The first mention of anywhere in Scotland on A1 seems to be Jedburgh via A696. At that point A1 is signed towards Morpeth.
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Re: Signage Rethinks

Post by Rambo »

I haven’t got a qualified opinion on the subject of signing London but i will say this..

Anybody i know who doesn’t know how to get to London would almost certainly use a sat nav so whatever is signed becomes almost irrelevant to the average Joe.
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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The practice has always been to sign generally until you are close enough for specific to be any use to the driver. So you sign the region first, then the city within the region, then the district within the city.

One of the key problems with Croydon is that if you're on the M23 and going to another part of Greater London, the last thing you want to do is to go through Croydon. Signage at the M25 will divide traffic between straight on (Croydon), east and west, until that point "London" is probably the most helpful thing to sign.

Put slightly differently, Belfast is signed on all approach roads until you reach one of the subsumed villages, at which point signs change to read "City centre". In the case of London, the point at which signs need to change is the M25, because each junction is a route centre in its own right.
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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I know I will regret it but I am wading back into this again.

First let's deal with this absolute red herring that keeps coming up.
Bomag wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 19:45Why sign London when from 100's miles away when almost nobody will travel there - also given how unwelcoming TfL makes it perhaps its a good thing to sign where road users want to go.
RichardA35 wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 08:57Not irrelevant, but there is significant flow to other destinations in the SE region (Channel Tunnel, Gatwick, Heathrow, Hammersmith, Watford etc) that reducing London to a single amorphous blob does no one any favours.
I fundamentally disagree with this point. I understand that the current policy ("let's keep the location of our biggest city a secret") is based on this premise, but it is a flawed idea. A sign pointing to "London" from somewhere as far afield as Gatwick Airport or Oxford is not only of use to someone who intends to drive to Trafalgar Square, and nor is it encouraging anyone to take their car inside the Congestion Charge boundary. To claim otherwise is madness. It is a wayfinding and orientation aid that helps you understand where a road goes. If I'm leaving Gatwick Airport and trying to work out which way I need to turn when I join the M23, seeing "London" on the sign when I'm actually heading for Southend is still useful. It tells me which way the road is headed and it tells me it more clearly and more unambiguously than almost anything else you could put on the sign, because London is big and well known and its location in the country relative to other places is extremely well understood. It's certainly going to be better understood and more useful to someone who doesn't know their way than "(M25)" or "Croydon" or "I'm not telling you which city of seven million people is at the end of this road because it's a State Secret".

That isn't an argument against putting "(M25)" on signs from far afield. Many people will be looking for the M25 and signposting it from further away is a good idea. But replacing London with the M25 on signs is only a sensible idea if you think that writing "London" will only assist people who want to drive to Central London.

Earlier in this thread Bomag gave us an example of navigating to a village off the A55 by following signs first for the M60, then for Chester before finding the A55. In that example you are not intending to arrive at the steps of Chester cathedral - you're not actually going to Chester at all - but seeing Chester on the signs helps you find your way. The same applies for London on signs. More so, in fact, because it's a more recognisable and well-understood location than Chester is. If one of those is good signage practice, and the other is bad, then this policy is a complete double standard.
RichardA35 wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 08:57
hemsl wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 08:08I fear we are stuck on an insistence to define London in the most narrow way possible (Westminster? The City?), rather than the broader definition of London, encompassing 9m residents, that people would generally have in mind when joining a motorway at Banbury.
Yes people are heading in the direction of "London", but very soon they need to make decisions - M25 CW or ACW or stay on M40 - a simple wayfinding strategy ideally giving more detail as you get closer with binary decision points is what is needed and what seems to have been proposed.
...
each decision flows from the last and London as a blob doesn't come into it other than as a substitute for an initial "head onto the M1/M40/M11/M4/M3 etc to the M25" from a long distance away.
Richard, this is exactly what we are all trying to say to you, and I'm so glad you agree. When you are as far away as Banbury, or Oxford, or Cambridge, or Gatwick, then London is exactly the right thing to put on the signs for exactly the reason you state. It is a shorthand for "head this way for everything in Greater London and everything you reach via the M25", and surely any ordinary road user understands that. The decision to turn onto the M25 one way or another comes when you reach the M25, and at that point London as a generic destination vanishes and you get more granular options. Which is what we are all saying should happen, and what you will find on the ground does happen, and what you have just said in this quote is the right thing to happen, and yet which seems to be outlawed by this insane policy decision that you're still trying to defend.
Bomag wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 19:45However much people are wedded to signing 'London', the fact that it is the capitol of the UK is not relevant to signs outside the south east.
Lord above, we are talking about signs in the south east. I realise that one of the earliest things mentioned in this thread were signs around Birmingham that pointed to "London" and that is plainly an anachronism; from that far away you could now signpost "The SOUTH" instead. Fine. But once you reach a point where you are in "The SOUTH", you need to put something else on signs that point towards London.
In the south east region the size of 'London' is often a poor substitute for providing the best route signing to both central London as well as outer boroughs
It depends where you are. If you're already on the M25, or on the final approach to it, then yes, I agree completely. Being specific about Central London or specific primary destinations within Greater London is useful. But you are ignoring the gap between the point where "The SOUTH" ceases to be meaningful or useful, and the point where you can start being specific.

Here's another example. Southbound on the M1, signs for "The SOUTH" end at Milton Keynes. There's no point continuing with them because you are now in the south of England. So the regional destination disappears and there's no other regional destination that could usefully replace it. From that point the forward destinations are London and Luton.

You could, arguably, have "M25" as a forward destination at that point and that would definitely be useful. I'd support it. But what you can't do, 25 miles out from any decision point about whether to take the M25 left or right, is start offering up specific places in London like Heathrow, Brent Cross, Westminster, etc. That would be meaningless. At that distance "London" is a useful identifier for the whole of London.

You will no doubt tell me that the correct forward destinations would be the next two primary destinations, so that at Milton Keynes the signs should actually point to Luton and Dunstable, and then St Albans, and then Hemel Hempstead, and then Watford. That seems like a ridiculous way to signpost a major motorway and relies on road users having far more detailed geographic knowledge - something you keep mentioning - than just "London", which every driver in every vehicle on the M1 will recognise and understand, even if their destination is not in Parliament Square. Nobody heading south on the M1 is seeing "London" and thinking the road will only take them to Central London, and nobody heading south on the M1 is seeing "London" and thinking "gee whiz, I was going to go round the M25 to get where I was going, but now I've seen those signs maybe I'll take the carriage drive through Hyde Park instead".

There comes a point where a policy might be well meaning and well researched but it has become utterly divorced from reality. I think this is one of them. Especially when coupled with the realisation, a page or two back, that it's not a policy you can ever actually use, because every road approaching London requires an exception to be made.
Last edited by Chris5156 on Thu Dec 30, 2021 11:05, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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Agreed entirely with Chris - the useful directions, for example, on the A14 approaching Cambridge are whether you're going to London or the container ports at Felixtowe; and going the other direction whether you're going to the NORTH or the MIDLANDS.

It'd be stupid to put either M25 only, or every possible direction on those signs, just as you wouldn't omit Brussels on signs when leaving Bruges in Belgium and use R0 instead, or omit Brussels and put "Leige, Namur, Aachen, Charleroi, Mons"

Equally, you wouldn't omit Brussels and instead sign all the suburbs from miles away.
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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Agree with Chris. For most travellers the big metropolises are an amorphous blob. Unless you are from that metropolis than it is all London, or Brussels, Paris, Rome, New York, rather than the towns and cities that have been subsumed into it. Places in London that are far bigger than places in regional England let alone places like Oban or Bangor in Scotland and Wales, are harder to imagine for the traveller and relatively meaningless until quite close up. I'd say the same for Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester.

Not signing London on signs to London would not be useful.
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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Chris5156 wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 10:39 I know I will regret it but I am wading back into this again.
RichardA35 wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 08:57
hemsl wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 08:08I fear we are stuck on an insistence to define London in the most narrow way possible (Westminster? The City?), rather than the broader definition of London, encompassing 9m residents, that people would generally have in mind when joining a motorway at Banbury.
Yes people are heading in the direction of "London", but very soon they need to make decisions - M25 CW or ACW or stay on M40 - a simple wayfinding strategy ideally giving more detail as you get closer with binary decision points is what is needed and what seems to have been proposed.
...
each decision flows from the last and London as a blob doesn't come into it other than as a substitute for an initial "head onto the M1/M40/M11/M4/M3 etc to the M25" from a long distance away.
Richard, this is exactly what we are all trying to say to you, and I'm so glad you agree. When you are as far away as Banbury, or Oxford, or Cambridge, or Gatwick, then London is exactly the right thing to put on the signs for exactly the reason you state. It is a shorthand for "head this way for everything in Greater London and everything you reach via the M25", and surely any ordinary road user understands that. The decision to turn onto the M25 one way or another comes when you reach the M25, and at that point London as a generic destination vanishes and you get more granular options. Which is what we are all saying should happen, and what you will find on the ground does happen, and what you have just said in this quote is the right thing to happen, and yet which seems to be outlawed by this insane policy decision that you're still trying to defend.
I'll just repeat what I said earlier:
I wrote:I can understand the reasoning behind trying to omit London but a good substitute is needed for this blob that is easily recognisable especially for the infrequent traveller.
As someone currently away from the roads industry and only personally invested as a traveller, I understand the reasoning behind the policy but I do not defend it - it needs a good substitute for London as "easily recognisable" and as intuitive for wayfinding before it can gain widespread acceptability.
At the junction of the radial routes with the M25, signing "London" without further qualifiers makes little sense but we have a legacy of what is there (possibly without revision from pre-M25 days):
On the A2 "London Bexleyheath is straight on at the M25 but City Airport is signed via the M25 and A13
On the M4 "Central London and Hammersmith"
On the M40 "Uxbridge and London (W)"
On the A3, M3, M23, M1 & M11 "London" without qualifier
Further away (between M25 to ~50-100 miles dependng upon situation), it makes sense to confirm the direction of the route but without a well known or understood replacement for "London" confusion will reign.
Given the recent widening or smart projects on several of these approach radials it would appear that the opportunity to bring the policy into action has been missed.
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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RichardA35 wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 12:08I'll just repeat what I said earlier:
I wrote:I can understand the reasoning behind trying to omit London but a good substitute is needed for this blob that is easily recognisable especially for the infrequent traveller.
As someone currently away from the roads industry and only personally invested as a traveller, I understand the reasoning behind the policy but I do not defend it - it needs a good substitute for London as "easily recognisable" and as intuitive for wayfinding before it can gain widespread acceptability.
Agree with this. Without any clear idea of what to substitute for London - short of (M25) - it doesn't appear to make a great deal of sense.
At the junction of the radial routes with the M25, signing "London" without further qualifiers makes little sense but we have a legacy of what is there (possibly without revision from pre-M25 days):
On the A2 "London Bexleyheath is straight on at the M25 but City Airport is signed via the M25 and A13
On the M4 "Central London and Hammersmith"
On the M40 "Uxbridge and London (W)"
On the A3, M3, M23, M1 & M11 "London" without qualifier
Further away (between M25 to ~50-100 miles dependng upon situation), it makes sense to confirm the direction of the route but without a well known or understood replacement for "London" confusion will reign.
Given the recent widening or smart projects on several of these approach radials it would appear that the opportunity to bring the policy into action has been missed.
Happy to agree with this, but the line I've put in bold is the part I've really been focussing on. "London" is presently used in that situation and appears, to me, to be by far the most sensible, useful and practical thing to put on signs. If not "London" then nobody has yet suggested anything that is even nearly so easily understood, well recognised and logical.
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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[Some unfriendly text here removed by SMT.] I barely ever post anymore. But I will say this.

To me, 'London' on signs is a better fit as a regional destination, more akin to The MIDLANDS or SOUTH WALES, rather than as a specific city like Birmingham or Cardiff respectively. I know by the rules of the TSRGD it isn't, but ignoring my interests and knowledge and looking at is as a general road user, that feels a better way of looking at it. Indeed, older gantries around Almondsbury show it as such, and whilst it's odd to see LONDON in all capitals (especially as this sign is much older than 1994, so none of the regional destinations should be in capitals), it most definitely has more than a degree of common sense to it.

If you were to replace London on signs, I guess the only vaguely accurate thing to put would be 'The SOUTH EAST'. Which works in some areas, but would look utterly bizarre at Gatwick or Dover, where you're heading in completely the opposite direction. And like Chris says, since London is so universally well known, why NOT use it?

All in all, the current system is actually pretty good - sign London from any reasonable distance, and then more specific destinations within the M25, or all the motorways around the M25. This idea of 'nobody is going to London' is utterly delusional, and completely misses the point. I'll say it again - COMMON SENSE. It would be nice if it was used a bit more often by some on here. :roll:
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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London isn't officially part of the South East region, so I think signing London on its approaches outside the M25 is fine. The SOUTH EAST can be a destination on routes outside that region, basically everything from the M1 to the A13.
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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Patrick Harper wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 16:31 London isn't officially part of the South East region, so I think signing London on its approaches outside the M25 is fine. The SOUTH EAST can be a destination on routes outside that region, basically everything from the M1 to the A13.
There is no SOUTH EAST.
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From the SABRE Wiki: Primary Destinations#Regional Destinations :

Primary Destinations are the key target destinations (technically, "places of major traffic importance") within the United Kingdom that are shown on direction signs along major roads such as Motorways and Primary Routes. These destinations are important key points and are used in combination with local place names that are defined by each local Highway Authority. Primary destinations will appear above local destinations on direction signs due to a furthest first rule in the

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Re: Signage Rethinks

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Big L wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 17:10
Patrick Harper wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 16:31 London isn't officially part of the South East region, so I think signing London on its approaches outside the M25 is fine. The SOUTH EAST can be a destination on routes outside that region, basically everything from the M1 to the A13.
There is no SOUTH EAST.
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From the SABRE Wiki: Primary Destinations#Regional Destinations :

Primary Destinations are the key target destinations (technically, "places of major traffic importance") within the United Kingdom that are shown on direction signs along major roads such as Motorways and Primary Routes. These destinations are important key points and are used in combination with local place names that are defined by each local Highway Authority. Primary destinations will appear above local destinations on direction signs due to a furthest first rule in the

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Re: Signage Rethinks

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Patrick Harper wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 17:23
Big L wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 17:10
Patrick Harper wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 16:31 London isn't officially part of the South East region, so I think signing London on its approaches outside the M25 is fine. The SOUTH EAST can be a destination on routes outside that region, basically everything from the M1 to the A13.
There is no SOUTH EAST.
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From the SABRE Wiki: Primary Destinations#Regional Destinations :

Primary Destinations are the key target destinations (technically, "places of major traffic importance") within the United Kingdom that are shown on direction signs along major roads such as Motorways and Primary Routes. These destinations are important key points and are used in combination with local place names that are defined by each local Highway Authority. Primary destinations will appear above local destinations on direction signs due to a furthest first rule in the

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Re: Signage Rethinks

Post by Bomag »

After being away having a relaxing time I have found this still going on.

As a 'primary' destination London should not be used outside of the M25 approaches on ADS. It wastes a primary destination, or requires signs to be overloaded. London (and other distant destinations) can be used on route confirmation signs and it is perfectly acceptable to put London (or parts of London, East City, etc) on secondary signs saying, for example 'For London E and City use M11, For London N and W use A1(M)'. Please note the discussion point is about 'primary' destinations and signing policy, some of the comments have conflated regional and target destinations on ADS with 'primary' destinations.

When used on RCS by convention its the distance to Charing X so there is no confusion as to what 'London' refers to.

There is a solution for those who, as an article of faith, disagree with this; after obtaining the relevant professional qualifications and industry involvement become the next Grade 7 as head of DfT Signs team.
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Re: Signage Rethinks

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Bomag wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 15:53 There is a solution for those who, as an article of faith, disagree with this; after obtaining the relevant professional qualifications and industry involvement become the next Grade 7 as head of DfT Signs team.
...which given the age of the current incumbent, will give prospective candidates plenty of time to gain said qualifications, etc. :twisted:
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