A project to reduce lane transgression at one of the UK’s busiest roundabouts has been recognised with two awards from ITS (UK), meaning it has now won a total of six for the work.
The Sheriffhall Roundabout scheme won both Forward Thinking and UK Scheme of the Year Awards at ITS (UK)’s President’s Dinner which took place alongside Traffex 2017 at the Birmingham NEC.
This success follows earlier recognition from four other major industry awards across the past year and is a confirmation of the effectiveness of innovative thinking to address a very common problem.
Sheriffhall is a "first of its kind" approach to reducing lane transgression on a multi-lane spiral roundabout. Connecting several key roads around Edinburgh and handling upwards of 42,000 vehicles a day, the A720 Sheriffhall Roundabout near Edinburgh has the potential to become very congested at peak times, so any incidents can bring about major disruption.
Clearview Intelligence, working alongside BEAR Scotland and Amey, for Transport Scotland, installed an innovative intelligent road stud solution on the roundabout, using Clearview Intelligence active road studs triggered by green phases of traffic signals on the roundabout. With the system in place, as soon as the traffic signal on the entrance to the roundabout turns green, studs embedded in the road surface immediately illuminate and guide drivers onto the appropriate lanes of the roundabout. As the traffic signal turns red, all studs on that section switch off and studs at the next section illuminate as the corresponding traffic signal turns green.
Independent evaluation by researchers from the Transport Research Institute at Edinburgh Napier University conducted a full 'before and after' study on driver behaviour at the roundabout with over 55,000 individual vehicle movements being analysed.
The research found a reduction in lane transgression activity across nearly all vehicle types and manoeuvres, even during daylight hours, with a significant reduction in transgression rate (>50%) for medium-sized vehicles. Overall, the study has concluded that the intelligent road stud scheme has significant positive impact on collision risk at the roundabout through reduced lane transgressions, meaning less congestion and fewer accidents.
The full list of 2016/17 awards for Sheriffhall are:
ITS (UK) Scheme of the Year Award
ITS (UK) Forward Thinking Award
Highways Magazine Excellence Awards - Road Marking Project of the Year
National Transport Awards - Most Innovative Transport Project
Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation - John Smart Road Safety Award
Scottish Transport Awards - Excellence in Technology and Innovation Award
Nick Lanigan, Managing Director of Clearview Intelligence was quick to praise the team involved, “Working in very close and integrated partnerships with our clients is a core aspect of how Clearview runs its business. I’m very proud of how the whole project developed and the way all the stakeholders approached working together in an open and collaborative manner. And just look at the result!” He added, “The Sheriffhall scheme may be the celebrated example of this way of working but it’s certainly not the only one we can legitimately point to as a normal working approach for us.”
