Signs of the times lorry route posting is too expensive
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reported by John Darker
k COUNTY STUDY TEAM has :oncluded that it would be far oo expensive to put up enough tigns to restrict lorries to tpproved routes and away rom all sensitive environrnen:al areas. But it believes that mice a map of advisory lorry -outes has been issued—and a 'ew extra signs erected—there s a good sign that most drivers will comply. As many as 90 per ent already followed proper routes.
• Neary 1,000 delegates attending the PTRC annual summer meeting, at Warwick University, were told this last week by Peter Kearney, of Hertfordshire County Council, presenting his significant paper on "Planning for the Dykes Act in Hertfordshire." He said a survey of a section of the county showed that signs for the whole county would cost £m—felt to be far too costly an exercise in view of its doubtful efficacy: Mr Kearney was asked about Redbourn—for long a black spot in the county. Why did drivers motor through it? There was, he replied, no café involved. Many drivers had no maps, and he concluded that those passing unnecessarily through a place like Redbourn did so through ignorance or as a relief from boredom.
The delegates came from local authorities, planning Ministries, research bodies, consultants and trade associations; they participated in numerous seminars covering the broad themes of corporate planning, town and country planning, transportation and highways.
The PTRC summer annual meeting is rapidly achieving national—indeed international —recognition and this year representatives of the European Economic Commission, the Freight Transport Association and the National Bus Company, made their mark in discussions. It hardly needs to be stressed that the bringing together of representatives of transport operators and the traffic planners who provide the road networks on which operations are conducted is helpful to both sides.
A number of papers dealt in great depth with the problem of lorry restraint in the context of the Dykes Act and the DoE's lorry routeing plans. Mr Kearney's study was undertaken in conjunction with the Transport and Road Research Laboratory which is expected to influence national decision making on lorry restraint.
Mr Kearney said it was decided to survey the problem of lorry control for a compact area taking in the towns of St Albans, Hatfield and Harpenden and comprising about one-fifth of the county area. The survey area was bounded by Ml, M10, A405, Al and A6129, and included several villages on main roads.
The agreed objectives were to establish and define the following classes of routes for movements of heavy goods vehicles: E National strategic routes; 0 County strategic routes; LI Major distributor routes within the county using A and B routes additional to the above; 0 Minor distributor routes between centres generating heavy goods traffic and major distributor routes.
In addition, the survey called for investigation of alternatives 'and the establishment of criteria for the use of these routes by different classes of hgv; the methods and cost of implementation were to be examined with an assessment of the effect of proposals under the headings of traffic, environmental, commercial, economic and social.
The Herts study included proposals for lorry parks and laybys on the defined lorry routes, and control of overnight parking of hgv. The objectives called for the preparation of a programme for implementation relative to TPP (Transport Policy and Programme) and Structure Plan, looking at proposed road networks for 1977, 1981 and 1986.
Mr Kearney explained the thinking of the survey team on various alternative "networks "—a series of links and nodes describing the road system available to lorry drivers. The team considered the base network from the aspect of a fine, medium or coarse mesh, and with various types of access, free, constrained, and fixed. With fixed access, drivers would have to use specified routes to and from the designated links with no freedom of choice.
Mr Kearney said the survey revealed that a large number of hgv had no business in the study area. Lorries, for example, still passed through Redbourn, though M1 was the alternative route, but in relation to all lorries counted the proportion that should not have been on unsuitable roads was small.
The section, of the county surveyed would have cost C87,000 for the erection of signs, equivalent to Elm for the whole county.
A constructive suggestion arising from the discussion session was that orders to suppliers of goods by firms whose premises were at all difficult to locate should include a local map to help delivery drivers.
Mr Kearney said a consultation brochure is being prepared which will recommend 'advisory lorry routes for vehicles exceeding 16 tons gvw, with free movements within meshes of the network for vehicles having business in the mesh. Tentative county lorry routes —outside the survey area— were to be discussed with district councils, and others interested.
Considerable pressure for restrictions to be placed on Class I and II roads within the meshes of the lorry route network could be anticipated, said Mr Kearney, and this made it imperative that county councils resist such pressures, at least until lorry routeing had operated for some years.
When Mr Martin Richards, Midlands regional controller of the FTA, presented a paper on "Planning for Freight Movement" jointly prepared by Mr R. K. Turner and himself, he found Mr Kearney's attitude to be very encouraging. He noted that of the heavier vehicles in Britain, own-account operations were responsible for almost two out of every three lorries. Extra burdens placed on lorries by way of traffic restraint measures not acceptable to the industry would have to be passed on to the public and he stressed that with many companies on thJ verge of bankruptcy, restrictions on the use of goods vehicles would be most unwise.
Transport operators, said Mr Richards, were faced with the choice between one inadequate road and another inadequate road. "The problem can here enlarge itself into a broader moral issue as to whether certain sections of the communty should be allowed the benefit at the direct expense of others. One can think of many areas where the percolation of traffic through a number of routes is far more desirable than its concentration on any one route. Equally, there are areas where a few vehicles that stray from the natural routes can cause a disproportionate nuisance and the redirection of these vehicles back on to the major routes is the natural solution."
There was the example of Exeter City where, under a general prohibition scheme routeing through traffic rounC the outskirts of Exeter was found to be causing hardshir in the residential areas a. night. The scheme was subse quently modified to redirect night-time through vehicle: back onto the city centre route Mr Richards outlined de ETA's views on the proposed national lorry routeing scheme and stressed the problem of minimising diversion distances since an extra mile per trip for every vehicle over 3 tons unladen would cost an extra £50m per year, every year. The negative routeing schemes now in force which prohibited the through lorry from using a certain street or series of streets presented problems to drivers without intimate knowledge of the area. Quite large zones in Oxfordshire denied access to lorries exceeding 3 tons unladen.
Often, said Mr Richards, a driver could not know whether an "except for access" qualification applied to him. It was inherent in this type of scheme that a driver could be, say, five or 10 miles from his destination yet still be able to take advantage of the access exception.
it was important that the lorry driver's human needs for food, toilet facilities, telephone and so on be taken into account by planners. Necessary facilities were often woefully thin on the ground.
In a later paper by Mr R. K. Turner, the ETA's specialist on traffic planning matters, details were given of the multicoloured plans of the county, showing advisory lorry routes, issued free at ports and cafes to lorry drivers in East Sussex. A similar advisory lorry route map has been published in Surrey and West Sussex. The flexibility of such advisory systems was advantageous in that a continuous review could be maintained with progressive action at trouble spots. Enforcement efforts were minimised because these could be concentrated at the pinch points.
A research paper by Mr D. G. McCallum (Alan Voorhees and Associates) described an Evaluation Criteria Study for Crawler Lanes. The effect of wind resiStance and gradients on lorries of 6bhp per ton could diminish road capacity to 59 per cent if there were 10 per cent of lorries on .the road, hence the case for consideration of crawler lanes to alleviate the problem.
Essentially, said Mr McCallum, the time-saving element could justify crawler lanes where there Was a sufficient traffic flow, but in a low-flow situation of 300 vehicles an hour crawler lanes could never be justified. In America, the practice was to extend crawler lanes over the brow of the hill to facilitate 'traffic merging as speed was gained.
Mr McCallum estimated that there were from 50 to 75 crawler lanes in existence in Britain and he thought as many again could be built with advantage. He stressed that DoE figures suggested that average lorry speeds were increasing annually by 11 to 2km per hour and that alternatives to crawler lanes, such as bypasses to hills, road straightening, etc, had to be considered.
A joint paper by J. H. Rees and Dr K. A. J. Crawford of the EEC's Transport Directorate on "Long-term planning for freight movements in Europe" said that over 8 billion tons of freight were moved annually within the Community, 10 per cent by rail, 83 per cent by road, five per cent by inland waterways and two per cent by pipelines.
The average distance moved by a ton of freight varied according to mode and in terms of "work done" a better measure was 'ton-kilometres whch indicated for each mode (in 1972) 27 per cent rail, 50 per cent road, 13 per cent inland waterways and 10 per cent pipelines.
In terms of tons, five per cent of goods moved were on international journeys, and here the percentage varied greatly as to mode, 10 per cent being by rail, 15 per cent by road, 35 per cent by inland waterways and 40 per cent by pipelines. In terms of tonkilometres—for which no data was available—it was thought rail comprised 20 per cent, road five per cent and inland waterways 50 per cent.
But for the restrictions on entry to the profession and in areas of operation it was thought likely that the trend towards road haulage would have been even greater in some countries. Attitudes to railways by Governments had been ambivalent owing to the conflict between the general desire for efficiency and the likelihood that increased road flows would necessitate further bsidy payments to the railtys and create difficulties th powerful railway trade ions. Also, in recent years, ere was increasingly vocal position from the environ?.ntal lobby about •the ungulated use of lorries in ban and other unsuitable 3a.s.
The road freight situation ts complicated by the exislce of a large " owncount " sector Which was rtainly governed by different iciency rules from those of elusive haulage operators. hat could be said was: There no evidence of chronic or neva' failure by the road ansport industry to produce turns either unreasonably gh (monopolistic) or low rhich would lead to failure to vest).
Railways had shown an ineasing inability to cover their costs and the acceptance of new developments (eg containers, unit-train's) had not been impressive.
Inland waterways suffered from chronic financial difficulties owing to the inherent problems of the sector and the historical failure of governments to establish realistic financial controls.
In a final comment the authors , revealed that rail deficits varied from £1,230m in Germany through £685m in France to E16m in Luxembourg, With every possibility of a worsening situation. The authors were in favour of complete liberalisation of transport policy provided that an efficient level and enforcement of quality controls (which hardly any country achieved) and that infrastructure and social costs could be correctly allocated.