Traffic and Transport Engineering

Norway’s big plans in a beautiful environment 

The Norwegian government is embarking on the largest infrastructure project in the country's history. Here is a seven-and-a-half-minute video that will take your breath away for the natural beauty and the engineering imagination.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCT-FurFVLQ

Traffic lights just beyond a roundabout 

In the north west of Sydney there is a set of pedestrian traffic lights just beyond a roundabout.  I understand that pedestrians struggle at roundabouts and that you do not want to put the lights too far away from the intersection for access purposes, but is this a good move or are there alternatives?

Vehicles that are stopped at the lights queue onto the roundabout. Is there an alternative to this?

Traffic Light coordination

Is the coordination of traffic lights getting worse?  Is it just more traffic or are we not applying enough of the skill and principles that established Australia as a leader in traffic signal control?

More often lights appear to be operating on a standard peak hour setting in the off-peak period. Is the reduction of staff, especially those with traffic signal management skills, a cause of this problem? Or could it be lack of maintenance of the critical loop detectors?

If you have a specific example then send it in.  We are looking at compiling the results.

Speeding versus transport priority offences

Victoria is well known for being very heavy handed on speeding offences where as little as one km/h over the speed limit can get you into trouble.

They don’t appear to be targeting activities that help public transport. Tram priority is critical to moving the greatest number of people along at-grade street corridors that include individual non public transport vehicles.

This photo was taken at 8:42 am on a Tuesday morning.  Apparently, some car drivers are not concerned.

This reminds me of a comment from a colleague who lives in Melbourne made.  He said that he readily waits in the tram lane to turn right and when a tram comes up behind and rings its bell, he happily waves them to go around!

Scooter injuries 

Graeme Pattison has highlighted an interesting point.

“In their submission to a national working party investigating the safety of innovative vehicles, the Royal Australian College of Surgeons and the Australian Injury Prevention Network identified 134 Lime scooter riders attending Brisbane hospitals in the first two months of this year.

“Among the 109 people where injury information was available, 27 per cent had limb fractures, and 14 per cent had some sort of head injury.”

Graeme askes: “I wonder what percentage of these are recorded in road accident stats?”
https://www.qut.edu.au/research/article?id=147101&_ga=2.91273626.1099634637.1565786313-834882293.1565786313  

Scooter injuries 

Graeme Pattison sent in a link that shows tram accidents around from around the world 

Alan Finlay commented:
“I agree that we need a good road user (all types) education campaign.  Most of the crashes in the video compilation appear to have been caused by others’ behaviour, not the tram drivers’. My understanding is that our intersections along the new Sydney tram routes will be tightly controlled and there will be minimal opportunities for filter turns across the tram tracks.  Pedestrians glued to their phones, and cyclists ignoring red lights are another matter.”