Lots of road closures at night

[Drive Blind]

Viewing the traffic scotland website almost daily I notice an increase in main roads closed overnight.

Is this a new plan of attack from the road maintenance companies? Rather than spend hours putting out miles of cones and lights, contraflow etc during the day just shut the road overnight?

[alangla]

Drive Blind said:

Viewing the traffic scotland website almost daily I notice an increase in main roads closed overnight.

Is this a new plan of attack from the road maintenance companies? Rather than spend hours putting out miles of cones and lights, contraflow etc during the day just shut the road overnight?

There's an impressive amount of work being done in weekend/overnight jobs just now. A big chunk of the M9 south of Stirling has been resurfaced over various weekends & the section of the southbound M80 where it joins the M876 was done in a week of overnights last week. We're talking planing the surface off & a full replacement, not just patching some potholes.

The only issue I've got with it is when they decide to do jobs involving closing key slips (sometimes 2 or 3 in a row) on the M8 in the city centre on a Friday/Saturday night - could these not be done on weeknights rather than the nights when the town is busy (and most people are in taxis!!)

[buachaille193]

I'm guessing that it is safer for the workforce. They don't have traffic passing them at high speed. Ok, 40mph but how many times do you see folk obeying that? Only vehicles on site are the works vehicles, with site speed limit of around 10mph.

If they can work on more than one lane at a time then there could be overall savings in lane rental charges.

[bigwheel]

buachaille193 said:

I'm guessing that it is safer for the workforce. They don't have traffic passing them at high speed. Ok, 40mph but how many times do you see folk obeying that? Only vehicles on site are the works vehicles, with site speed limit of around 10mph.

I agree with what you say.
However, it didn't prevent the on-site M8 E'bound fatality outside Glasgow Airport a few weeks ago.

[RPE11Y]

The main reason for night works is to usually to minimise disruption for Joe Public - most works require safety zones for the workers which involve closing lanes and even full roads, and could not be contemplated during the day. It is not generally safer as seen by that recent fatality - I knew the guy and his family and this would probably not have happened if the work was done in daytime.
But there is such a fuss made not to upset the public with delays during the day the roads authorities tend to opt for night works regardless of the extra costs, compromised safety and quality due to poor visibility and restricted hours.
So as long as people are intolerant to delays on the roads, night works will increase.