Experts differ with Minister on M50 chaos

Traffic management authorities across the world have differed with the assertion by Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey that little can be done about collisions which close down key motorway corridors for hours at a time.

Speaking after a seven car pile-up on the M50 which caused severe congestion during the morning rush recently, Mr Dempsey said motorists may have to simply get used to such disruption. Commenting that road crashes are increasingly being treated by gardaí as crime scenes, and consequently closed for long periods to preserve evidence, Mr Dempsey said he did not see how such situations could be avoided.

However, other jurisdictions have developed a number of solutions which keep traffic moving, particularly in the area of non-fatal traffic collisions.

In the United States, for example, a standard Freeway Management and Operations Handbook details the speedy removal of crashed cars, with a police priority on keeping traffic moving, with strong emphasis on avoiding road closures.

In a further move, some 13 US states have signed up to no-fault auto insurance laws which eliminate the need for accident victims to establish another's liability, or fault, through a civil lawsuit.

Essentially, the type of indemnity plan those injured in a crash receive is direct payment from the company with which they themselves are insured.

In Britain, Continental Europe and Asia the focus is on prevention of crashes and, when they do occur, the elimination of traffic congestion through Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS).

These systems range from the British overhead gantries using variable information messages flashed to drivers to data collection sensors in the roads, in use in Germany, which predict traffic density and conditions which are likely to lead to crashes.

The Ruhr pilot project, for example, gathers traffic information from a number of cities and the motorways between them, and submits it to a central control station which enacts any necessary traffic management changes.

While the sophistication of such systems varies, they are installed in virtually every jurisdiction across the world and are aimed at preventing precisely the kind of incident which led to the seven-hour tail-backs on the M50 southbound almost two years ago, due to roadworks near Bray.

According to Dr Thomas Stetter head of ITS at Siemens - which has installed more than 1,000 of these systems around the world - the core issue is to get information to drivers to allow them to make informed choices.

Dr Stetter, who is based in Germany, told The Irish Times that he wasn't aware of the recent seven car pile-up on the M50, but said such delays were generally "a matter of policy".

"If you allow the road to be closed, yes, you will have tail-backs of several hours," he said. "ITS is about traffic management to keep the traffic flowing he commented."

While such systems require investment, Dr Stetter said the investment was usually less than the loss to business, to commuters and to the environment as a result of delays and congestion.

The National Roads Authority (NRA) said it would welcome measures that kept traffic flowing, but it deferred to gardaí and local authorities on the issue of enforcement and management, and to Government policy in the area.

Dublin City Council's office of the director of traffic, which monitors traffic in the Dublin region, said the traffic pile-up involving seven cars on the M50 was a particular set of circumstances in which the emergency tow-away lane had not been available on the day in question.