Overview
When existing SRL customers, ERH, and its sister company Centregreat, contacted Regional Manager, Paul Hamilton, about a refurbishment to existing signals in Bridgend, Paul immediately recognised the potential for Urban64® and referred the scheme to the major projects team. At that time, ERH were unfamiliar with Urban64® and its benefits, so managing director, John Cleary was pleased to enlighten them…
The Challenge
When existing SRL customers, ERH, and its sister company Centregreat, contacted regional manager, Paul Hamilton, about a refurbishment to existing signals in Bridgend, Paul immediately recognised the potential for Urban64® and referred the scheme to the specialist team. ERH had articulated their concerns from the outset; refurbishments on a similar local site had caused disruptions. At that time, ERH were unfamiliar with Urban64 and its benefits, so managing director, John Cleary was pleased to enlighten them…
The Park St / Angel St intersection in Bridgend is an incredibly busy, multilane crossroads, with heavy right turns and left turn movements. From the outset, it was clear that this would require additional green time that portable signals couldn’t provide. Urban64® was able to accommodate these needs with filter / indicative phases and walk with traffic pedestrian facilities.
The Solution
Initially, our Urban64® team explained the system and its benefits – ultimately, this would be a more efficient solution as we were able to implement separately signalled movements.
The next step was to produce an Urban64® layout design to maximise the efficient operation of the junction whilst enabling refurbishment works and access around the site. A site visit was carried out to agree and mark-out the block positions.
Installation and removal took just one night under lane closures, with minimal disruption to traffic.
Technical Benefits
Using LINSIG modelling, we were able to demonstrate why Urban64® would be a great solution for Bridgend’s signal improvement scheme. Results suggest that by replicating the permanent system, Urban64 delivers several benefits vs its portable alternative. To explain a little further, under portable signals it isn’t possible for individual pedestrian phases to run with specific traffic movements (walk with traffic). Under a portable arrangement, vehicular traffic needs to stop on all approaches to allow pedestrians to cross on each arm. Another downside of using a portable system on a scheme of this size, is that pedestrians would need to cross the road in two cycles – one cycle to cross into the central island, and another cycle from the centre island to the other side of the road.
The difference in green time is also derived from the impact of splitting the main road. This means that the main road (in this case the northbound and southbound), run together, then one of the movements stops to allow a right turn from the opposing direction. This is the most efficient way of running the junction. Portable signals cannot operate like this. They only ‘split’ the main road, by running the northbound traffic followed by the southbound traffic.
The value of ~860m is based on the difference between green times in an hour,so if the Urban64® / Permanent signals were at or over capacity (at capacity, every vehicle that turns up gets through first time with no wasted green time. Over capacity, after each green there are vehicles in a queue that couldn’t get through on the first cycle), and a portable signal setup was introduced, then after the first hour there would be an extra 860m of queues divided up across each approach. The ratio across each approach would depend on the specific green time changes. Urban64 is a dynamic solution, which utilises VA (Vehicle Actuation) to extend green times as needed. The system can also use MOVA to improve system efficiency.
“Urban64 performed flawlessly and made the whole project run so well. For the first time in a job of this size, we didn’t receive a single complaint from the public. This is something that we will look to utilise in the future for schemes that are suitable for longer term intelligent temporary signals.”
Colin Hill Street Lighting ManagerThe Result
Throughout the entire hire period, the client reported zero faults, and perfect reliability. That being said, with our dedicated 24/7 fault number, the Urban64® team are always on-hand to help if you need them.
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