Are matrix signs deliberately useless?

[sim72]

Drove from the North East to the Midlands today

"A1 delays at A197"
"A64 delays at A1237"
"A19 delays at A589"
"A46 delays at A6097"

Apart from the A64 one (which is York and is always busy) none of these messages are useful to be as I've no bloody idea where the other roads are.

More to the point, neither of the queues on the A1 (one quite bad) that we caught up in were mentioned on the matrices at all?

What is the f***ing point of them?

/rant

[sim72]

xxChrisxx said:

You are absolutely right. The matrix people should get your itinerary and only provide information to your specific journey.

You're missing the point. If I'm on the A1 and it says "delays at A197" I can't tell if it actually affects my journey unless I actually know where the A197 is. Why can't it say "A1 delays near Morpeth"? Why can't the A19 one say "A19 delays at Stockton"? Or the A64 one say "A64 delays York ring road"?

[sim72]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

One of those on the southbound A1 near Wetherby services today. About 200 miles away.

[sim72]

xxChrisxx said:

Matrix boards have limited space to display information. Displaying by intersecting road is a the best compromise between accuracy of info and use of space.

Agreed on the old style signs (which were 2 lines of 12 characters, though you could still fit in "A1 delays at Morpeth" for example), but the new ones are 3 lines of 16 characters. One today had something like "Leeds Festival 28-31 August delays possible", and another one the Dartford Crossing message mentioned above.

[sim72]

I forgot one that really boiled my piss last week - coming home westbound around 10pm along the A14 to find it was shut for roadworks from Junction 2 to Catthorpe. First sign that mentioned this? At Junction 4. If it'd been signposted earlier I could have come off at J13 and gone A45/M1. As it was I had to blunder round the Leicestershire countryside for half an hour.

[sim72]

Today's helpful message: "A5 closed at A505". Thanks.

[sim72]

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)?

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

[sim72]

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

[sim72]

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.