Are matrix signs deliberately useless?
Discussion
The LOCATION on the incident is the very most important information that we can get. Often we'll get between junction *X* & junction *Y* now when we look at the signalling system, if there is MIDAS between those junctions, it should start lighting up with "QUEUES" this then gives us a good clue where the incident is. if there is no MIDAS on that stretch of motorway, then all we can do is set signals to cover the whole lot between the junctions. On the M6, most junctions are between 4 - 8 miles between, but J32 - J33,M6 is 13½ miles between, now you see the problem!
Note: MIDAS is only present on the busiest parts of the motorway network, and not at all on the trunk roads.
The HE only cover the main truck roads, these can be seen on the traffic England incident map, http://www.trafficengland.com/
Anywhere else and it belongs to the local authority.
Note: MIDAS is only present on the busiest parts of the motorway network, and not at all on the trunk roads.
The HE only cover the main truck roads, these can be seen on the traffic England incident map, http://www.trafficengland.com/
Anywhere else and it belongs to the local authority.
Gafferjim said:
STRATEGIC MESSAGES: These seam to boil the piss out of you guys. These are the messages that say "M1 closed at J32" or "A5300 closed after M62" etc.
These are messages set because there is some sort of closure; Incident/roadworks etc where a road is closed for more then 15 mins for some reason or other. These are set by either knowing how long it's going to be closed (roadworks) or best guess if it's an incident. Depending on how long the road is anticipated to be closed for, the signs are set outwards from the location at 60 miles for each hour anticipated. This gives the long distance travellers the option to find an alternative route. YOU may not know where the hell the sign means, but the HGV / long distance driver who's needs to use that particular route will.
"The HGV / long distance driver who needs to use that particular route will". No, they won't. I often don't, and I do a lot of miles and have a pretty good knowledge of the road network. How on earth could they unless they've got a database of every minor road in the UK available to them at the touch of a button while they're driving, or unless they stop and get a map of the UK out (which might be 25 miles away on a motorway)?These are messages set because there is some sort of closure; Incident/roadworks etc where a road is closed for more then 15 mins for some reason or other. These are set by either knowing how long it's going to be closed (roadworks) or best guess if it's an incident. Depending on how long the road is anticipated to be closed for, the signs are set outwards from the location at 60 miles for each hour anticipated. This gives the long distance travellers the option to find an alternative route. YOU may not know where the hell the sign means, but the HGV / long distance driver who's needs to use that particular route will.
Yesterday on the M6 near J4, this one appeared.
"A5 closed at A5064". That was on a 2 x 12 matrix. Completely useless, of course. I'm guessing that no-one who doesn't live in the local area of the A5064, or uses the road regularly, would have the faintest clue.
On the next one, a 3 line matrix, it said "A5 closed at A5064 (Shrewsbury)". Aha!
Thing is, why didn't the first one say "A5 closed at Shrewsbury"?
That was my point with the original posting. To take an example from the few months back, when I was driving up the A1 near Ferrybridge and I get "A1 closed at A1167", I shouldn't have to actually pull off the road only to find out the A1167 is near Berwick, 150 miles away, and it doesn't affect me at all. "A1 closed at Berwick" would have done it.
Why the insistence on road numbers? Surely a location would be better?
Edited by sim72 on Wednesday 2nd September 12:30
garycat said:
thebraketester said:
"M6 TOLL ROAD CLEAR"
We dont need to know if its clear because it always is, what it should state is the current situation on the M6 proper.
If the M6 proper is congested, it will also say that, so if it is not mentioned you can assume it is clear.We dont need to know if its clear because it always is, what it should state is the current situation on the M6 proper.
sim72 said:
On the next one, a 3 line matrix, it said "A5 closed at A5064 (Shrewsbury)". Aha!
Thing is, why didn't the first one say "A5 closed at Shrewsbury"?
Why the insistence on road numbers? Surely a location would be better?
On a 3 line VMS they can put the town as well as the road number (NTICC do this, we can't)Thing is, why didn't the first one say "A5 closed at Shrewsbury"?
Why the insistence on road numbers? Surely a location would be better?
But on a 2 line VMS you use the road number because there's probably more than one junction that can be used for that town.
They actually did a survey a couple of years ago on just what messages like this the public wanted to see, nothing has changed so I assume the majority are happy with what's set.
I had the situation of a warning message being placed too late to avoid the problem.
A316 north towards Twickenham. Mobile sign placed after the last roundabout before the Twickenham roundabout saying delays due to match. If you're a rugby fan you knew the match was on. If not tough.
The road is a dual carriageway with central barrier. So no chance to avoid the queue. Whowever placed the mobile sign should have put it earlier so you had the opportunity to take a different route.
A316 north towards Twickenham. Mobile sign placed after the last roundabout before the Twickenham roundabout saying delays due to match. If you're a rugby fan you knew the match was on. If not tough.
The road is a dual carriageway with central barrier. So no chance to avoid the queue. Whowever placed the mobile sign should have put it earlier so you had the opportunity to take a different route.
sim72 said:
To take an example from the few months back, when I was driving up the A1 near Ferrybridge and I get "A1 closed at A1167", I shouldn't have to actually pull off the road only to find out the A1167 is near Berwick, 150 miles away, and it doesn't affect me at all. "A1 closed at Berwick" would have done it.
Why the insistence on road numbers? Surely a location would be better?
I agree. An alternative, which would be automatically do-able given a computer with the power of, say, a pocket calculator or ZX Spectrum, would be to "A1 closed in 78 miles" with the distance automatically calculated for the known & fixed location of every matrix sign.Why the insistence on road numbers? Surely a location would be better?
Edited by sim72 on Wednesday 2nd September 12:30
sim72 said:
Thing is, why didn't the first one say "A5 closed at Shrewsbury"?
Ooh, ooh! I can answer this!The A5 basically encircles much of Shrewsbury town and is broken up by many roundabouts, so just saying that the A5 is closed at Shrewsbury would be useful for people unfamiliar with the area, but not at all useful for people familiar with it - which part of the A5 is closed?
As it turned out yesterday, it was a relatively short stretch of the A5 between two roundabouts and most people's journeys would have been largely unaffected except for perhaps a slight delay while getting on to one of the diversionary roads.
Whereas if it'd just said "A5 closed at Shrewsbury" then people may have gone completely off the beaten track and around the houses trying to avoid the A5 altogether, completely unnecessarily.
sim72 said:
"The HGV / long distance driver who needs to use that particular route will". No, they won't. I often don't, and I do a lot of miles and have a pretty good knowledge of the road network. How on earth could they unless they've got a database of every minor road in the UK available to them at the touch of a button while they're driving, or unless they stop and get a map of the UK out (which might be 25 miles away on a motorway)?
Well you might not use the information because you have zero knowledge of the road network but those of us that do drive HGVs appreciate the advance info from 100 miles away so we have the option of using an alternative route. Using your own example from your post about the A1 being closed at the A167 (not the A1167 as 1. that's too far away and 2. there have been closures at the 167 on and off for some time now as I go up that way fairly regularly) - telling me that's closed before I get past Thirsk is very useful as I can divert up the A19. Similarly, telling me that the A66 is closed when I'm 150 miles away on the M25 heading for Scotland is also very useful as I can go up the M40 or M6. Telling me that the M42 is closed at the A5 when I'm still 60 miles away north of Nottigham gives me the option of running down the A38.I do think that the 2 line boards would be better adding the J number and road number, not just the road number as some of the rural A and B road numbers can be a bit obscure. Eg. "M6 closed at B6261" probably wouldn't mean a lot to anyone not local to Cumbria but "M6 closed at J39 B6261" would still fit on a 2 line board and be infinitely more useful imho.
I would also like to see more info on motorway closures for roadworks. I don't think it would be too hard to post scheduled closure times on the boards, eg. "M6 closed J9-10 2200-0500". I do realise the instant response from Jim here will be that often the roadworks are cancelled at the last minute or overrun but that's fine - just udpate the board accordingly - "M6 closure J9-10 cancelled" or similar.
The blanket speed limit reduction and "INCIDENT" warnings for 10 miles before the actual incident also annoy me beyond reason. I get the initial reasons for displaying them like that in order to confirm exactly where the problem is, but once the location is known there is simply no need to be reducing drivers to 50mph 10 miles before the incident because that has the exact opposite effect as the driver slows down, sees nothing for the next few miles, puts it down to the matrix boards being full of s
t once again and then goes barrelling into back of someone stranded in lane 3 doing 90. Once the location is known then "INCIDENT - 1 MILE, SLOW DOWN" or similar would be much more useful and then if no incident appears within the next 2 miles the driver can be safe in the knowledge that whatever it was has now been cleared up and can resume normal speed.
Gafferjim said:
If you're still convinced that you can do better, we're advertising for control room operators at the moment, but be quick, they only leave the ad up for a few days.
https://recruitment.highways.gov.uk/templates/high...
Need to advertise somewhere visible to a lot of people? I reckon you should put the job vacancies on the matrix boards!https://recruitment.highways.gov.uk/templates/high...
chrisga said:
Need to advertise somewhere visible to a lot of people? I reckon you should put the job vacancies on the matrix boards!
Actually they don't. There will be so many applicants a lot are shifted out on an initial *paper-shift* exercise, ie if they've used too many words in an answer ( ie in under 200 words tell us.........) or if they're asked "What did you do?" for an example, but the applicant writes "We did................" Basically, if the applicant can't follow the instructions, they're out, even before they get to an interview stage.Back to messages, We don't have free text on the message signs, but have to pick from a selection of authorised and preloaded messages. To get new messages authorised takes for ever due to the cost involved, each new message has to be loaded onto every sign so that it can take it, the price that gets charged for this is horrendous. NTICC have free text because they have a different system that sets the signs, but anything not already authorised has to go before a meeting of suites first, then they decide if it can be used, free text messages are only used on a very small number of signs at a time.
All that jazz said:
Well you might not use the information because you have zero knowledge of the road network but those of us that do drive HGVs appreciate the advance info from 100 miles away so we have the option of using an alternative route. Using your own example from your post about the A1 being closed at the A167 (not the A1167 as 1. that's too far away and 2. there have been closures at the 167 on and off for some time now as I go up that way fairly regularly)
Um, no, the message was definitely "A1 closed at A1167" when they were resurfacing the road as advertised here. I would have known where the A167 is because I travel between the Midlands and the North East regularly, which is sort of my point - that matrix message wasn't helpful unless you were travelling another 150 miles up the A1, whereas people would expect that such messages were directly related to the majority of journeys.Edited by sim72 on Thursday 3rd September 00:25
Gafferjim, thanks for the insight!
Looks like it isn't "Smart" or even "Managed", it's like all of life in the UK these days, "Nanny-state interference".
Is "Check your fuel" message really in response to people running out? If so why can't they just be banned from (trying to) drive for the whole of their miserable life so the rest of us can get on with ours?
Sadly I suspect it's true, but why aren't there ever any messages telling the MLMs to keep left so the 3 lane motorway has all 3 lanes in use instead of just 2?
They seem to manage it in Germany, but then they manage more realistic speed limits too!
Looks like it isn't "Smart" or even "Managed", it's like all of life in the UK these days, "Nanny-state interference".
Is "Check your fuel" message really in response to people running out? If so why can't they just be banned from (trying to) drive for the whole of their miserable life so the rest of us can get on with ours?
Sadly I suspect it's true, but why aren't there ever any messages telling the MLMs to keep left so the 3 lane motorway has all 3 lanes in use instead of just 2?
They seem to manage it in Germany, but then they manage more realistic speed limits too!
Mr Tidy said:
Gafferjim, thanks for the insight!
Sadly I suspect it's true, but why aren't there ever any messages telling the MLMs to keep left so the 3 lane motorway has all 3 lanes in use instead of just 2?
I haven't seen one for a while, but "Don't Hog the Middle Lane" and "Keep Left Unless Overtaking" were common messages on the matrices on the M1 at one time. Sadly I suspect it's true, but why aren't there ever any messages telling the MLMs to keep left so the 3 lane motorway has all 3 lanes in use instead of just 2?
As I've said, working from historic information gathered from the closure codes, or from knowledge of events close by, these campaign messages are decided upon months in advance.
In our region at the moment it's "look out for bikes" due to the high number of motorcycles running back & forth to the ferry ports to go across to the various motorcycle races in the Isle of Mann & Ireland. Next expect "Is your car ready for winter" The brain dead won't take any notice, and well get plenty of frozen up vehicles, knackered wiper mechanisms, duff lights etc.
Running out of fuel, I personally have dealt with a good number of drivers that have run out of fuel and they've just passed a services, even one driver was actually underneath the services, but didn't know it! doh!!
I often wonder how these people actually manage to get through their daily life with the limited brain power they obviously possess.
In my view, there are two major problems with drivers, EVERY driver thinks that they are a better driver than they actually are, and a vast majority believe that it's not their fault if it goes Pete Tong. It's the Husbands, it's the weather, it was the garage that serviced the car 2 months ago, but NEVER their fault! We hear all these excuses on a daily basis.
In our region at the moment it's "look out for bikes" due to the high number of motorcycles running back & forth to the ferry ports to go across to the various motorcycle races in the Isle of Mann & Ireland. Next expect "Is your car ready for winter" The brain dead won't take any notice, and well get plenty of frozen up vehicles, knackered wiper mechanisms, duff lights etc.
Running out of fuel, I personally have dealt with a good number of drivers that have run out of fuel and they've just passed a services, even one driver was actually underneath the services, but didn't know it! doh!!
I often wonder how these people actually manage to get through their daily life with the limited brain power they obviously possess.
In my view, there are two major problems with drivers, EVERY driver thinks that they are a better driver than they actually are, and a vast majority believe that it's not their fault if it goes Pete Tong. It's the Husbands, it's the weather, it was the garage that serviced the car 2 months ago, but NEVER their fault! We hear all these excuses on a daily basis.
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