The future of smart motorways

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Ruperts Trooper
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Re: The future of smart motorways

Post by Ruperts Trooper »

B1040 wrote: Sun Mar 06, 2022 22:26 On the M42, ALR means a lane drop at every junction. If the road is busy, you have a slightly tricky lane change as you approach every junction. This is off-putting to say the least, so I tend to get into lane 2 and drive at whatever (legal) speed keeps me out of L1. I am not familiar with many other schemes so can't comment on them.
Before the M74 extension was built, I used to use the M73 and M8 to get on the A82 - the M8 was signed at several junctions with lane 1 for the next junction and lanes 2/3 for through traffic but didn't have a lane drop through the junction leading to confusion, in my mind anyway, whether trailers were allowed in lane 3 or not - locals simply stayed in lane 2 rather than use lane 1.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Ruperts Trooper wrote: Mon Mar 07, 2022 08:10
B1040 wrote: Sun Mar 06, 2022 22:26 On the M42, ALR means a lane drop at every junction. If the road is busy, you have a slightly tricky lane change as you approach every junction. This is off-putting to say the least, so I tend to get into lane 2 and drive at whatever (legal) speed keeps me out of L1. I am not familiar with many other schemes so can't comment on them.
Before the M74 extension was built, I used to use the M73 and M8 to get on the A82 - the M8 was signed at several junctions with lane 1 for the next junction and lanes 2/3 for through traffic but didn't have a lane drop through the junction leading to confusion, in my mind anyway, whether trailers were allowed in lane 3 or not - locals simply stayed in lane 2 rather than use lane 1.
Ahhh, Glasgow gantries.

At the risk of opening one of SABRE's best preserved cans of worms, the signs in Glasgow aren't necessarily telling you there's a lane drop, it's just that their design always puts the sign for an exit above lane 1, making it unnecessarily difficult to work out if lane 1 will exit or not. The distinction is about whether the sign for the exit spans the whole of lane 1, or just half of it, which is hard to discern while driving, especially if the road isn't ruler straight and you're not seeing it directly head-on.

Whenever I mention this, someone from Glasgow comes along to tell me that they work just fine and nobody has difficulty navigating with them :wink:
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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JammyDodge wrote: Fri Mar 04, 2022 00:17
Big L wrote: Thu Mar 03, 2022 13:07
DB617 wrote: Thu Mar 03, 2022 12:35 Were the DHSR hard shoulders strengthened to full traffic bearing standards originally? If I was to calculate the traffic loading for Lane 1 on an ALR motorway it would be considerably more than on a part-time running lane.
Given how little traffic uses lane 1 of an ALR motorway (“it’s dangerous” ie “I don’t like looking through the big sheet of glass when I’m driving”) I can’t see it being an issue.
My experience is actually that people wont use Lane 2, as the HGVs will use lane 1. Lane 3 seems to have a magnet effect for many, as its not the 'fast lane', its not the 'slow lane' and its not where the hard shoulder was

The fact I was cruising at 70 in lane 2 on the M1, all on my own, while very slowly undertaking lane 3 was incredibly frustrating when I went home for Xmas. As I really don't enjoy undertaking at all because it is wrong, but I also couldn't overtake, as Lane 3 was rammed
I don’t believe undertaking in this situation is wrong if you are keeping to your lane and the lane on your right is a slower moving convoy. Weaving to undertake will of course get you a prosecution.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Chris5156 wrote: Mon Mar 07, 2022 20:43
Ruperts Trooper wrote: Mon Mar 07, 2022 08:10
B1040 wrote: Sun Mar 06, 2022 22:26 On the M42, ALR means a lane drop at every junction. If the road is busy, you have a slightly tricky lane change as you approach every junction. This is off-putting to say the least, so I tend to get into lane 2 and drive at whatever (legal) speed keeps me out of L1. I am not familiar with many other schemes so can't comment on them.
Before the M74 extension was built, I used to use the M73 and M8 to get on the A82 - the M8 was signed at several junctions with lane 1 for the next junction and lanes 2/3 for through traffic but didn't have a lane drop through the junction leading to confusion, in my mind anyway, whether trailers were allowed in lane 3 or not - locals simply stayed in lane 2 rather than use lane 1.
Ahhh, Glasgow gantries.

At the risk of opening one of SABRE's best preserved cans of worms, the signs in Glasgow aren't necessarily telling you there's a lane drop, it's just that their design always puts the sign for an exit above lane 1, making it unnecessarily difficult to work out if lane 1 will exit or not. The distinction is about whether the sign for the exit spans the whole of lane 1, or just half of it, which is hard to discern while driving, especially if the road isn't ruler straight and you're not seeing it directly head-on.

Whenever I mention this, someone from Glasgow comes along to tell me that they work just fine and nobody has difficulty navigating with them :wink:
That's at least two of us who find them confusing, and results in me avoiding lane one if I'm in any doubt as to whether I mind end up on a lane drop.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Chris5156 wrote: Mon Mar 07, 2022 20:43
Ruperts Trooper wrote: Mon Mar 07, 2022 08:10
B1040 wrote: Sun Mar 06, 2022 22:26 On the M42, ALR means a lane drop at every junction. If the road is busy, you have a slightly tricky lane change as you approach every junction. This is off-putting to say the least, so I tend to get into lane 2 and drive at whatever (legal) speed keeps me out of L1. I am not familiar with many other schemes so can't comment on them.
Before the M74 extension was built, I used to use the M73 and M8 to get on the A82 - the M8 was signed at several junctions with lane 1 for the next junction and lanes 2/3 for through traffic but didn't have a lane drop through the junction leading to confusion, in my mind anyway, whether trailers were allowed in lane 3 or not - locals simply stayed in lane 2 rather than use lane 1.
Ahhh, Glasgow gantries.

At the risk of opening one of SABRE's best preserved cans of worms, the signs in Glasgow aren't necessarily telling you there's a lane drop, it's just that their design always puts the sign for an exit above lane 1, making it unnecessarily difficult to work out if lane 1 will exit or not. The distinction is about whether the sign for the exit spans the whole of lane 1, or just half of it, which is hard to discern while driving, especially if the road isn't ruler straight and you're not seeing it directly head-on.

Whenever I mention this, someone from Glasgow comes along to tell me that they work just fine and nobody has difficulty navigating with them :wink:
Where ever you go in the country, locals quickly adapt to whatever the road layout is - but they're quick enough to complain when strangers get in the "wrong" lane.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Chris5156 wrote: Mon Mar 07, 2022 20:43 At the risk of opening one of SABRE's best preserved cans of worms, the signs in Glasgow aren't necessarily telling you there's a lane drop, it's just that their design always puts the sign for an exit above lane 1, making it unnecessarily difficult to work out if lane 1 will exit or not. The distinction is about whether the sign for the exit spans the whole of lane 1, or just half of it, which is hard to discern while driving, especially if the road isn't ruler straight and you're not seeing it directly head-on.

Whenever I mention this, someone from Glasgow comes along to tell me that they work just fine and nobody has difficulty navigating with them :wink:
If only we had standard signage which is used (usually) consistently across the country which could if there is a lane drop or not...
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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jervi wrote: Mon Mar 07, 2022 23:00
Chris5156 wrote: Mon Mar 07, 2022 20:43 At the risk of opening one of SABRE's best preserved cans of worms, the signs in Glasgow aren't necessarily telling you there's a lane drop, it's just that their design always puts the sign for an exit above lane 1, making it unnecessarily difficult to work out if lane 1 will exit or not. The distinction is about whether the sign for the exit spans the whole of lane 1, or just half of it, which is hard to discern while driving, especially if the road isn't ruler straight and you're not seeing it directly head-on.

Whenever I mention this, someone from Glasgow comes along to tell me that they work just fine and nobody has difficulty navigating with them :wink:
If only we had standard signage which is used (usually) consistently across the country which could if there is a lane drop or not...
Glasgow's system predates the 1975 TSRGD - before then the only gantry signs we had were for lane drops, the idea that you could use gantries for motorways without lane drops was alien.

https://showmeasign.online/2017/03/15/glasgow-gantries/

This is also why several of the early backlit signs on the Leeds Inner Ring Road suggest there are lane drops when there aren't, because no other sign was available. The Mancunian Way experimented with upward pointing arrows.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Bryn666 wrote: Mon Mar 07, 2022 23:03Glasgow's system predates the 1975 TSRGD - before then the only gantry signs we had were for lane drops, the idea that you could use gantries for motorways without lane drops was alien.
This is true, but there can't be many actual signs on the Glasgow motorway system that predate 1975 any more. Many of them are on roads that are newer than that. So while that explains the way the system was designed, it doesn't adequately excuse the fact that nobody has brought the designs up to date since then.

I'm now ducking out of further discussion of this subject because I am liable to go off on one :paperbag:
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Chris5156 wrote: Tue Mar 08, 2022 08:04
Bryn666 wrote: Mon Mar 07, 2022 23:03Glasgow's system predates the 1975 TSRGD - before then the only gantry signs we had were for lane drops, the idea that you could use gantries for motorways without lane drops was alien.
This is true, but there can't be many actual signs on the Glasgow motorway system that predate 1975 any more. Many of them are on roads that are newer than that. So while that explains the way the system was designed, it doesn't adequately excuse the fact that nobody has brought the designs up to date since then.

I'm now ducking out of further discussion of this subject because I am liable to go off on one :paperbag:
Is this where I remind you of the model railway variant of the Glasgow Gantry? :D
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Chris5156 wrote: Tue Mar 08, 2022 08:04
Bryn666 wrote: Mon Mar 07, 2022 23:03Glasgow's system predates the 1975 TSRGD - before then the only gantry signs we had were for lane drops, the idea that you could use gantries for motorways without lane drops was alien.
This is true, but there can't be many actual signs on the Glasgow motorway system that predate 1975 any more. Many of them are on roads that are newer than that. So while that explains the way the system was designed, it doesn't adequately excuse the fact that nobody has brought the designs up to date since then.

I'm now ducking out of further discussion of this subject because I am liable to go off on one :paperbag:
At a guess having full height compliant signage through, say, the canyon would probably draw all sorts of complaints from the city council about visual intrusion.

To be honest after seeing the utter cack that was slapped along the A90 I wouldn't trust TS' consultant bodies to provide any signage that was useful for a wholesale replacement through Glasgow. With the costs of gantries now skyrocketing thanks to needless bloat and foundations the size of Luxembourg I can't see it ever crossing anyone's to do pile.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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I've never been to Glasgow or seen a Glasgow Gantry but having, for example, two lane control signals over one lane (one for exiting traffic and one for continuing traffic) seems quite confusing for motorists from England / elsewhere in the UK where the convention is one signal per lane, even without a lane-drop. So IMO absolutely the gantries should be updated for consistency.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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EpicChef wrote: Tue Mar 08, 2022 09:28 I've never been to Glasgow or seen a Glasgow Gantry but having, for example, two lane control signals over one lane (one for exiting traffic and one for continuing traffic) seems quite confusing for motorists from England / elsewhere in the UK where the convention is one signal per lane, even without a lane-drop. So IMO absolutely the gantries should be updated for consistency.
Just caught up with this debate after a self-imposed exile from this topic. Having spent a massive part of my life travelling regularly to the North beyond Glasgow (first as child passenger in parents' car, then as driving adult), the "split signs over lane one" on the M8 work just fine. Yes Chris, your prediction was correct!

However I can see that, at first sight, a driver on the M8 for the first time would think "WtF?" and then slide very carefully out into lane two!

Happy SMARTing.

The messages displayed on the M8 overhead gantries ("check tyre pressures", "be a courteous driver") simply scream "nanny state" to me. But that's my opinion.

Back to the safety of Lane two.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

Post by TomJ »

There's a higher than average amount of middle lane hogging that happens on Glasgow's motorways.

I'm convinced it's down to a combination of the signs and people who don't usually drive any long distance on a motorway (so aren't familiar on the rules/etiquette) being let loose.
Last edited by TomJ on Thu Mar 10, 2022 10:48, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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TomJ wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2022 20:04 There's a higher than average amount of middle lane hogging that happens on Glasgow's motorways.

I'm convinced it's down to a combination of the signs and people who don't usually drive any long distance on a motorway (so aren't familiar on the rules/etiquette) being let loose.
Could it also be a mortal fear of getting siphoned off at lane-drops?

I've had the surreal experience of driving up the long hill on the M2 from Belfast and being the only person in lane 3, while all of the other traffic was in lane 2, and nothing was in lane 1.

Weird stuff. Enough to make you wonder why they bothered to build the motorway at all! And I've experienced it on that stretch more than once.

The only thing I can think of is that people think that there's no point being in lane 1 unless you're existing for the A8 to Larne, although the hill is long and there's no sign of the lane drop until you reach the top!
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Owain wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2022 21:51 Could it also be a mortal fear of getting siphoned off at lane-drops?
Similar things can happen around Manchester where they love lane drops. I often do the whole of the M67 in the middle lane for that reason. Not right but sensible and I know I'm not the only one.
Weird stuff. Enough to make you wonder why they bothered to build the motorway at all!
Yeah perhaps we shouldn't bother building lane 1. Just like the end biscuits in the packet are always broken so we might as well leave them out. :coat:
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Re: The future of smart motorways

Post by Peter Freeman »

jackal wrote: Sat Feb 13, 2021 15:28 An interesting case is the proposed widening between M25 J29 and the LTC - it will have C/D lanes northbound, and a single five lane carriageway southbound.
And that 5-lane carriageway then splits into 3-lane M25 and 2-lane LTC (I think ... ?), before those branches each regain one lane. Too narrow: asking for trouble!
(sorry for the bump, but it's been bugging me)
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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the cheesecake man wrote: Thu Mar 10, 2022 13:59
Owain wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2022 21:51 Weird stuff. Enough to make you wonder why they bothered to build the motorway at all!
Yeah perhaps we shouldn't bother building lane 1. Just like the end biscuits in the packet are always broken so we might as well leave them out. :coat:
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Peter Freeman wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 10:57
jackal wrote: Sat Feb 13, 2021 15:28 An interesting case is the proposed widening between M25 J29 and the LTC - it will have C/D lanes northbound, and a single five lane carriageway southbound.
And that 5-lane carriageway then splits into 3-lane M25 and 2-lane LTC (I think ... ?), before those branches each regain one lane. Too narrow: asking for trouble!
(sorry for the bump, but it's been bugging me)
Actually it splits into 4 lane M25 and 2 lane LTC. The previous version was even worse - 5 lanes split into 4 lane M25 and 3 lane LTC.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

Post by Micro The Maniac »

The newly opened smart M27 correction, M4, had a fatality this week... a passenger in a black Nissan.
  • In the immediate aftermath, it was reported that the black Nissan lost control and crashed into a white van...
  • Subsequently, it is being reported that the white van crashed into the back of the broken down black Nissan.
A new-built stretch of smart motorway won't have been opened without stopped-vehicle detection, will it?
Last edited by Micro The Maniac on Sun Mar 13, 2022 11:31, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Micro The Maniac wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 21:30 The newly opened smart M27 had a fatality this week... a passenger in a black Nissan.
  • In the immediate aftermath, it was reported that the black Nissan lost control and crashed into a white van...
  • Subsequently, it is being reported that the white van crashed into the back of the broken down black Nissan.
A new-built stretch of smart motorway won't have been opened without stopped-vehicle detection, will it?
Sounds like the one the M4 not the M27
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ch-M4.html

That section is supposed to have SVD https://nationalhighways.co.uk/our-work ... -motorway/
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