Highway control

The world grows evermore congested but the demand for personal mobility is undiminished. The author describes how technology can keep the traveller on the move. Two obvious corrective measures would be to restrict the use of private cars and to build new roads. Both approaches are political minefields. Car owners do not welcome limitations on their personal mobility, and there is little public support for road building on the scale needed to expand capacity in line with demand. Confronted by such difficulties, government and traffic authorities are increasingly turning to modern information systems as a means of developing alternative approaches to the control of traffic and the management of demand. The author describes the SCOOT system, a real time traffic light control system, and the variable speed limit signs on the M25. The further development of such systems and concepts is the provision of real-time traffic information, which is discussed by the author