Learned Programme

Darren Capes Head of Road Infrastructure Technology - Department for Transport, Traffic and Technology Division, will share important and up to date information from the DfT.

Anthony Gent IEng FIHE - Principal Engineer (Traffic Signals)-Lincolnshire County Council will welcome the audience to Lincoln and The University of Lincoln and will then talk about asset management, local government revenue and budgetary pressures in Lincolnshire.

This project applies previously presented bus route analysis theories and traffic
signal timing adjustments to improve journey times and reliability for prison vehicle
movements, generating significant savings on judicial and court-related costs.

Many of the signalised junctions and roundabouts on the strategic road network have queue detection at the bottom of the off slips. At MOVA sites on short internal links the X loop may also be used to provide a queue detect/hurry call for the circulatory.

A queue on an off slip is likely to be caused by exit blocking or a gridlocked circulatory. Often this results in a battle between hurry calls  for the slip road and hurry calls for the circulatory.

But are queue loops and hurry calls better than MOVA or SCOOT

Reducing stationary or very slowly moving queues is one way of reducing congestion, pollution, inefficient stop–start travel, bus travel times and carbon emissions in cities. This paper considers traffic signal control and road pricing together; aiming to eliminate queueing in at least a subnetwork.

The paper shows that policy 𝑃₀ (Smith (1980, 2015)), is capacity-maximising for a general network with vertical queueing delays. It is shown that using prices (instead of delays) in the 𝑃₀ control policy maximises the capacity of a general steady state network, with zero queues. This result is extended to dynamic networks.

This paper will take a systems approach to the problem, and use floating vehicle data to make the measurements necessary to initiate improvement possibilities.

By analysing the occupancy and speeds of the different possible routes through the system at different times of day, a picture will be built up.

The likeness will be drawn to that of five rivers merging together, and having their flow restricted by bridges, dams, and other obstructions.

Meaningful cost reduction often comes not from cutting, but from rethinking how we use and design our assets. Many installations remain stagnant or under‑used simply because we continue to build and maintain them the way we always have. By approaching each new or replacement installation with a mindset of expandability, future‑proofing, and first‑principles thinking, we unlock opportunities that legacy habits tend to hide.

Instead of defaulting to “this is how we’ve done it for 25 years,” we pause and ask a more powerful question: If this were the first time, and we had today’s tools, materials, and technologies, how would we do it? Sometimes that process leads us back to the same solution, which validates our current approach. But more often, genuine innovation reveals smarter, leaner, and more resilient ways forward—reducing costs now while strengthening the long‑term value of every installation.

By challenging assumptions and designing with modern capability in mind, we open the door to improvements that compound over time, turning previously overlooked assets into sources of efficiency, adaptability, and sustained savings

Bull Street/Corporation Street is a new delta junction in Birmingham, which serves 6 tram movements, a high pedestrian demand, and a busy bus route. The site has recently successfully passed the test and commissioning phase and is due to move into  full tram service in the next couple of months. The paper will look at the innovative design solutions that were implemented at the junction to safely serve all tram movements, with its complex tram and traffic signal interface design which needed to meet strict stakeholder requirements, as well as provide  priority for pedestrians, tram and buses.

There have been significant advances in detection technology.  Applying these products and using them to advance traffic signal optimisation will be considerable more straightforward if the data they present is in a standard form and users know their capabilities.  This paper describes the currnet status of work at TOPAS to standardise new detection.