"Contract Carriages Increase London Congestion"
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Scotland Yard Officer Explains Causes of Congestion and Outlines Attempted Remedies
PARKED private cars, contract carriages and right-turning traffic were outstanding causes of traffic congestion in London, said Chief Inspector J. C. Murray,,Traffic flepartment. New Scotland Yard, in a paper' which he read last week before the London Branch Educational Society of the Industrial Transport Association.
On a normal weekday the average hourly flow of traffic at Hyde Park Corner was 6,000. vehicles, Marble Arch, 3,850. Oxford Circus, 2,750, Trafalgar Square, 5,150, Mansion House crossing, 3,000.
Legal powers to control traffic were first given to the police in 1839, but h was not until the 1860s that the actual day-to-day control of tMffic by the police wai introduced.
Much criticism was levelled, at the use of mobile police to control traffic, but it had proved highly successful. The primary object of the mobile police was to inculcate care and courtesy on the roads, with prosecution as a secondary consideration.
The introduction of police cars with radio-telephony equipment in 1947 resulted in much greater efficiency in dealing with traffic problems. When serious congestion arose it was possible to divert traffic within a matter of minutes, thus avoiding the spread of congestion over a large area.
Vehicle-actuated light signals, said the inspector, were admirable at isolated road junctions, but were inadequate at peak-traffic times on a busy main road with many intersections carrying heavy traffic. An example of such a thoroughfare was Oxford Street. Signals at adjacent intersections were linked and whilst, in theory, this method should have given almost free passage to a group of vehicles passing down the main road, in practice it did not.
The most common form of linking was provided by master controllers, which governed a number of subsidiary installations, the whole working on a fixed time cycle set by the master controller.
A refinement to this system was she introduction of an integrator' by means of which the time cycle of the master controller was automatically checked and reset, if necessary, at five-minute intervals.
The problem of the waiting vehicle was two-fold, as it concerned goods vehicles and private cars. Arrangements made during" the Festival of Britain were quoted as having resulted in much improved conditions, and the inspector said that these might well be adopted in other instances.
Measures mentioned as being possible means for relieving congestion were (a) improvement in road layout, (b) introduction of one-way traffic systems and the prohibition of righthand turns, and (c) restrictions on waiting and slow-moving traffic. Roundabouts and the alteration of road layouts had done much in recent years to improve traffic flow.
Systems that had proved reasonably effective in keeping traffic on the move were those instituted at Hyde Park Corner, Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square. Right-hand turns were prohibited wherever possible, but alternative routes were not always available.
Coaches on private hire, being free from control as regards routes, terminal points and other matters likely to affect traffic in congested areas, often became a problem, and were not looked upon favourably by police authorities.