Why do they mess about with traffic light timings?

[HA51EMT]

The daily commute takes in several sets of traffic lights, which for the last few years has had traffic flowing relatively smoothly.
Usually when the set you’re at changes to green it's a nice steady run and the next set turn green as you approach.
Now they have fked about with the timing and it is stop and wait at every set along the route.
The result is a few minutes added to the journey plus obviously traffic stood and backing up for longer periods, making it seem a lot more congested than it need be.
Why do they do it?

[Jasandjules]

Because they will soon introduce some "new measure" to combat this terrible traffic issue, usually some cost for example a congestion charge. Then put the lights back to how they were and traffic flows again and hey presto, their "new measure" was a success.

[Megaflow]

Christ knows, but it does my sweede in... Last year, or maybe the year before, they upgraded a fairly major roundabout in Peterborough so the two main approaches had 4 lanes and everything else had 3 lanes, as well as putting traffic lights on it to try and balance the flow a bit.

When they annouched these works, everybody at work was concerned it would turn into a nightmare, when they finished it, it was actually very sucessful. It kept the main routes following nicely without holding up the smaller ones unduly. Since then all they have done with it is mess around with the light sequence and it gets worse everytime.

On my route home for example, there is a spell of green, not sure how long for, lets say a minute, then they go to red to let the minor routes across and it goes to green again, but this time it is green for ~1/3 of the time before going back to red and repeating...

[Guybrush]

Jasandjules said:

Because they will soon introduce some "new measure" to combat this terrible traffic issue, usually some cost for example a congestion charge. Then put the lights back to how they were and traffic flows again and hey presto, their "new measure" was a success.

That's the usual trick, usually by a left-leaning council who hate private transport and love to mess with it by wasting fuel and time.

[redgriff500]

I called my council when the usual free flowing lights changed and held all 4 lanes on red for 30 seconds (it used to be 4)

I presumed they were broken.

I was informed it was "Traffic Calming"

WTF are they on ?

I told them it didn't make me very fking calm sitting in a queue for no reason.

[Guybrush]

redgriff500 said:

I called my council when the usual free flowing lights changed and held all 4 lanes on red for 30 seconds (it used to be 4)

I presumed they were broken.

I was informed it was "Traffic Calming"

WTF are they on ?

I told them it didn't make me very fking calm sitting in a queue for no reason.

Yes, all the traffic backed up, so that when they do eventually go green, there is a larger mass of cars all bunched up, no free flow at all. The council can be utter a holes - and they do it on purpose - I really don't think it's ignorance.

[Stephanie Plum]

Jasandjules said:

Because they will soon introduce some "new measure" to combat this terrible traffic issue, usually some cost for example a congestion charge. Then put the lights back to how they were and traffic flows again and hey presto, their "new measure" was a success.

This. Ken Livingstone was a big advocate of it during his tenure as Mayor of London.

[sinizter]

Or to create a new bus lane or some such and blather on about how much more efficient it can be ...

[selwonk]

These jokers probably suggested it:

http://www.curacaoproject.eu/

[redgriff500]

selwonk said:

These jokers probably suggested it:

http://www.curacaoproject.eu/

What they actually do is price poor people off the roads
simpler just to keep increasing fuel prices.

Of course then the jobs the poor people used to do, won't get done - that's progress for you.

[chrisxr2]

Why when they put roadworks up like they did recently at a crossroads near me can they not set the temporary lights to the same timing as the permanent ones, reducing the gridlock. There was a good documentary a while ago when some guy tweaked loads of lights in London, it made an enormous difference.

[Paul O]

They have done this on one of my routes too. No idea why. It used to have intelligent lights, they seem to work out how much traffic was flowing in one direction and if it was light, it would change and let you go. If not, you waited for a set time (such as busy periods). At night time, you'd be on your way in a few seconds.

Now though, you have to wait for the entire sequence of several green lights across multiple empty roads to complete before you can go. It mkes no sense, and the result it more standing traffic.

The light sequence never needed changing, and nothing else was changed other than this. The mind boggles...