Best South East UK motorways for high-level traffic?

[MageFilms]

Hi guys,

This is a bit of an odd request! As we're looking for roads that we can guarantee high level of traffic.

But are working on upcoming feature film involving characters travelling from central London through the South and onwards to Folkestone / Dover. It's set within a day of chaos in the UK so we need to be creative in terms of how we depict this on the roads. While we will have the budget to close private country roads and some smaller city roads. We won't have the budget to exclusively shut down motorways.

It's those scenes with gridlocked motorways that will sell this sense of chaos.

We are in need of South East motorways / dual carriageway that will have a high-level of rush hour traffic for long durations of time.

Anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks

[c2R]

M25 heading clockwise/northbound to the M4 interchange in the evening rush hour, or the A282 Dartford Tunnel approach heading north/anti at about the same time would do pretty nicely I'd have thought. Or the M11 southbound to charlie brown's in the morning rush hour.

[WHBM]

You need to determine what sort of traffic speed to represent for your film content - somewhere flowing at 20-30mph, or stationary/5mph creeping. You also need somewhere with a low heavy lorry content, so not really the M25, as there would not be many lorries in such an event.

If your chaos is people fleeing out of London, you will want a road where there are not equally heavy flows in both directions, with as many heading towards as from London ! The M25 and Dartford examples above are commonly equally loaded in both directions. So good to pick somewhere where the carriageways are separated. Or filmed looking back from an overbridge approaching traffic signals on a main dual carriageway like the North Circular - because there will be intermittent moments as the signals behind you go red when the flow coming towards you is busy and slowing, whereas hardly anything is going the other way because their lights are on red.

Finally, the example above of the M11 approaching the North Circular in the morning peak is also a good example. Somewhere like Roding Lane, Chigwell, overbridge would give a good morning shot around 0800-0830. See here :

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.62572 ... ?entry=ttu

Lastly, if you have a bit of budget there's a fully-kitted up national training centre in the Cotswolds for the emergency services and highways engineering which can be hired, commonly known to us lot as the "M96". Would suit near/medium shots. It's described here :

https://pathetic.org.uk/secretive/m96/

[nowster]

Have your camera crew wear some yellow high vis as they stand on the overbridge pointing the camera (on a tripod) at the road below. You're guaranteed to see some emergency braking from motorists who'll think you're operating a speed trap.

[MageFilms]

M25 heading clockwise/northbound to the M4 interchange in the evening rush hour, or the A282 Dartford Tunnel approach heading north/anti at about the same time would do pretty nicely I'd have thought. Or the M11 southbound to charlie brown's in the morning rush hour.

Thanks. Will make a note of these.

[MageFilms]

You need to determine what sort of traffic speed to represent for your film content - somewhere flowing at 20-30mph, or stationary/5mph creeping. You also need somewhere with a low heavy lorry content, so not really the M25, as there would not be many lorries in such an event.

If your chaos is people fleeing out of London, you will want a road where there are not equally heavy flows in both directions, with as many heading towards as from London ! The M25 and Dartford examples above are commonly equally loaded in both directions. So good to pick somewhere where the carriageways are separated. Or filmed looking back from an overbridge approaching traffic signals on a main dual carriageway like the North Circular - because there will be intermittent moments as the signals behind you go red when the flow coming towards you is busy and slowing, whereas hardly anything is going the other way because their lights are on red.

Finally, the example above of the M11 approaching the North Circular in the morning peak is also a good example. Somewhere like Roding Lane, Chigwell, overbridge would give a good morning shot around 0800-0830. See here :

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.62572 ... ?entry=ttu

Lastly, if you have a bit of budget there's a fully-kitted up national training centre in the Cotswolds for the emergency services and highways engineering which can be hired, commonly known to us lot as the "M96". Would suit near/medium shots. It's described here :

https://pathetic.org.uk/secretive/m96/

Thanks. In terms of the heavy flow direction, I guess one way we could cheat this if we find a section of road like some of the above and loop around. This will enable us to remain in traffic for as long as possible. I think?

Regardless, we will have to send a much smaller unit to film solely establishing shots and cutaways for traffic another day most likely.

Do you happen to know when the busiest times are for motorways towards Dover / Folkestone? We will also need a few shots depicting cars attempting to flee the UK via ferry / eurotunnel.

[Vierwielen]

One bit of dual carriageway (not motorway) that is almost garaunteed to have a traffic jam is the A3 as it enters London during the mormning rush hour. If you can get close to this spot you have three lanes merging into two while in the opposite dierction you have two lanes expanding into three. I don't know what it is like nowaday, but I used to commute on this section in 1988 and there lane reduction caused a bottleneck back then. I doubt that it has improved!

BTW, I selected this location on Google Maps so as to show the 50 sign and the lanes merging sign, though I suppose that in practise you will choose a slightly different site. Also, note that there are no driver location signs on the A3 whereas they are on all the motorways leading out of London.

[Glenn A]

i would say what was the A40(M), the Westway, which isn't exactly a barrel of laughs at any time of the day.

[SteveA30]

Sometimes, the A20 from Folkestone to Dover is used as a very long lorry park, on the inside lane only, when there is congestion at Dover. I'm sure stock footage of this is available if you don't see it yourselves.

[Ben302]

A2 heading away from London is always at a crawl in the evening rush. You could stand on the Heath Lane or Oakfield Lane overbridges and film 3 lanes of crawling traffic there. At Heath lane you'd get the traffic merging in from the Dartford Heath Interchange too

[solocle]

M25 heading clockwise/northbound to the M4 interchange in the evening rush hour, or the A282 Dartford Tunnel approach heading north/anti at about the same time would do pretty nicely I'd have thought. Or the M11 southbound to charlie brown's in the morning rush hour.

Thanks. Will make a note of these.

I mean, technically the A282 is not a motorway. The A2 also sees incredibly high levels of traffic.

This gives you a sense, 5 pm on a Saturday, so well off peak times.

[Bryn666]

Obviously it would need to be recent but there's always the option of stock footage of congestion from news organisations if you can't find a good location.

Back in 2003 when The Day Britain Stopped was released most of the traffic scenes were stock footage including CCTV camera outputs to great effect.

[trickstat]

M25 heading clockwise/northbound to the M4 interchange in the evening rush hour, or the A282 Dartford Tunnel approach heading north/anti at about the same time would do pretty nicely I'd have thought. Or the M11 southbound to charlie brown's in the morning rush hour.

In my experience, the A282/M25 heading towards the tunnel in Kent can queue as far as the M20 junction on a weekday outside of rush hours. The traffic heading the other way tends to flow fairly well.

[Chris5156]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the M4 eastbound between junctions 3 and 2. A traffic jam of some length is guaranteed at most times of day, but in the morning (say from 7am to about 10am) there'll be a good 20 minute queue at minimum.

[Gav]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6BxSbx1Fm0

[jervi]

You can look at many sections of the M25/A282. Dartford Crossing can become particularly congested, as can the M25 between J13 & J16 (clockwise). Also the M25 on the approach to J10, currently exacerbated by the roadworks.
The A27 at Chichester is also very congested during peak hours, but doesn't pass off as a motorway.

There are some dual carriageways which are not open for traffic, but could be used for filming. I am not aware of any in the SE though:
Yate, nr. Bristol - https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.53299 ... ?entry=ttu - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQOroZNr_fw
Corby - https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.51075 ... ?entry=ttu - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrcckdw3c68

Both of these could illustrate a rural dual carriageway, but not really a motorway.

Best times to catch the A2/A20/M20 busy is during disruption. If ferries are cancelled or Border Forces are striking or whatever, then you can expect heavy traffic around the terminals.

[wallmeerkat]

Does it have to be SE UK? An hours flight to Belfast, the Westlink has apocalyptic scenes of guaranteed high levels of traffic on a daily basis, typically tidal by morning/evening rush hours.