White Lines

  

White Lines

Did you know white lines were ‘invented’ by the Romans who would place white painted stones in the middle of carriageways in busy market towns to control traffic? 

Whatever did the Romans do for us, eh? 

It was ‘re-invented’ at the advent of urban congestion in early Victorian times. Believe it or not London, Norwich, York and Bristol were so congested due to lack of lane discipline, there were queues through the busy centres.

The use of white lines has moved on somewhat since then. 

Solid white lines should never be crossed on a motorway, nor hatched areas. 

But wait. The hard shoulder has a solid white line. And service vehicles park on hatched refuges for safety.

Solid white lines should never be crossed on highways either. Well, the central white line shouldn’t, those in the channels and those outlining hatched areas only outline a feature. Oh and hatching on highways can be crossed too.

Confusing? Well you probably work in the industry, so have at least a basic understanding of it. Imagine the average driver.

But do we really need all these white lines? Currently I wonder whether local authorities all got bought a ‘Whitelining machine’ by Santa over the past couple of years. Wherever there’s an empty black space, it gets filled with hatching. Have a look and ask yourself, ‘Is that needed?’ or ‘What are they trying to advise me?’ After all, hatching on most roads are advisory, and do not stand-up in courts as a mandatory direction under regulations.

What is the point of this hatching?

Why is a traffic lane filled with hatching?

Then, imagine all the way back to Victorian times. White lines were put down to allow persons to pass on each other’s right-hand side. So we’ve had 4 or 5 generations to learn about white lining. It’s in our psyche. So do we need all of them? Certainly hatching in the middle of roads is not needed unless it’s advising you of a right turn bay coming up. It should not be used to separate opposing traffic as the hatched area becomes a no-mans-land, and could be used by both vehicles at the same time travelling towards each other. In Poole hatching is not used on approaches to central refuges, and it looks very smart and tidy – and works. In Wiltshire, on low speed straight roads, no central markings are used, and it slows vehicles down.

We know what side of the road to drive on. Even the ‘Johnny Foreigner’ understands it. Having no white lines slows vehicles down, and brings back eye contact and human interaction. Sure you’ll get the odd idiot who may crash, but we shouldn’t always design for those with a lack of driving skills or common sense.

So let’s try and encourage councils to take up white lines, or at least when they resurface, to redesign or at least reconsider whether all the white lines need replacing. 

Let’s follow Wiltshire and Poole’s examples, it looks nicer, and slows vehicles down, and no one wanders onto the wrong side of the road wondering where to drive.

Well there’s probably always one. Line or no line!

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Does Speed Kill?

  

Does Speed Kill?

(This post is featured in Surveyor Magazine - December 2013 edition)

We must decrease speed and make everyone safer. To do this designers are putting in vertical and horizontal realignments on existing roads. Speed limits are being reduced. Police cameras are being erected and mobile units despatched to stop this huge menace.

Except. That is not quite correct is it?

The amount of deaths on our roads is no longer decreasing substantially, and yet safer routes are being implemented every week. So what is going wrong?

Nothing in that sense, but everything in another.

We have bottomed out as a nation as far as casualties are concerned on the highway. In other words, you will never get zero deaths on the roads. It’s not possible. Stupidity, bad driving, lack of concentration, bad luck, weather, faulty mechanics – all these are random acts and are impossible to design out.

So should we stop trying to make our roads safer? No. However we’re going about it in the wrong way.

For starters I am not anti-camera, but I am anti-cameras being placed in the wrong locations.

It is a fact that mobile speed cameras and static speed cameras are placed to help reduce speeds, but they are not placed in the locations where they are needed for safety. Have you ever seen them outside schools or sports arenas? Or, outside hospitals or elderly residents housing complexes? NO. 

This is because camera units have to be self funding. If they were placed where they would be effective in deterring stupid driving, they wouldn’t generate income. So they are placed in areas where speeds are high, and this tends to be where speed limits are being broken. However, the public is not stupid. Many authorities are turning perfectly good 50mph or 40mph designed roads into 30mph roads. This is where the cameras are stationed. 

The natural speed of a road is not the limit, but the design speed curves, widths, verges and locations. A semi-urban 5m wide lane dual carriageway should never be 30mph, yet councils are reducing these speeds due to a problematic junction or roundabout further up the route. Their thinking is if the approach speed is reduced, then the accidents will reduce. However, my studies have concluded these types of accidents are due to low speed hesitations and mis-timings. Nothing to do with speed, but confidence - lack of, or too much of.

I have looked at hundreds of accident statistics over the years. Less than 1% of these accidents is due to speed alone. Most are non-concentration, carelessness, weather, drink/drugs or non-driver faults (i.e. pedestrian’s fault - very common). Yet there is a common belief that the road must be realigned and the speed reduced, as that is the only answer. This not only misses the point but means the majority of users on that road get a road which is slower for no apparent reason, and so naturally drivers drive to the design speed. I will mention this a lot, but designers must design to the natural speed and desire line of vehicles. 

Too many are designing to force drivers to follow white lines and speed limits that are clearly wrong. I will cover this in my next column.

The problem with reducing semi-urban road limits to 30mph, is that ‘genuine’ 30mph roads such as those in a built up location, means there is no formal reduction in a speed limit. 

As you can see in the pictures (above), why should both of these roads be 30mph? 

Drivers will clearly see a lack of danger in the semi-urban route. 

In fact we all know driving at 30mph past a school at 9am is more dangerous than driving at 90mph on a motorway. 

Not that you’ll find a speed camera outside a school, but you’ll find a camera over the M4 near Chippenham!

Find The Engineer

www.findtheengineer.com

0845 021 2468

New Group Structure

New Group Structure

Find The Engineer is proud to announce it has been merged into First National Recruitment Group Ltd.

Along with Sister companies and brands We Are Recruitment, Cotterell & Gifford and First National Recruitment we can offer a complete package of expertise to any market sector in the UK, Europe and abroad.

Call 0845 021 2-4-6-8 

for more details on what we can offer you, or visit

www.findingtheengineer.com

www.cotterell-gifford.com

www.wearerecruitment.com

UK Manufacturing Is Efficient

      

UK Manufacturing is Efficient

I recently had the opportunity to be invited to look around Siemens' Poole factory by the IET. 

Having worked in traffic signals for years, I realised I had never been in their factory before, so was quietly excited and intrigued what went on behind the scenes of one of the UK’s leading traffic technology companies.

The first thing you need to know about Siemens in Poole, is it is the original Plessey site in Creekmoor. 

Creekmoor is a quiet residential suburb, but just after passing the local grammar school, you’re presented with a mixture of post war and modern architecture.

My first thought was that I would find a run-down dusty, dirty warehouse with scruffy men hammering kit together.

Siemens Traffic Head Office - Poole

Well what a pleasant surprise. The factory is very sleek, clean, bright, and very quiet! I was presented to the factory managers, who were very professional, and came across as very proud of their work.

The factory was amazing. More than I thought it would be. Inside were fabrication machines, soldering and assembly lines, all running and very quiet.

Siemens do not have the capacity to make thousands of products there. They stated, quite rightly, they would be swallowed by the Chinese manufacturers on that level. 

However, they make a few hundred to order, and in fact sell to the Chinese, as well as over 20 other countries, which surprised me.

The Factory Floor

They assemble traffic light heads, push button units and their own comms units as well as many circuit boards, all designed and built to fit over 400 different models. The logistics of setting the machines for that was mind boggling. 

The main product was of course the controller for traffic systems. These are assembled to order in full, then moved to another section where they are thoroughly tested and sprayed with Tecqua protection before being shipped to the client. 

Even the shipping rota is efficient. It’s all sent to Leicestershire twice a week, then despatched from there by a national haulage company. Saving them and customers P&P costs.

So why was this factory doing so well in the UK?

Well it is all down to Siemens LEAN 3i system. An anglicised version of Toyota’s LEAN system. This system is where staff earn bonuses (yes money!) for trying to make their work more efficient. If it is a success and Siemens use it, then they get their bonus. This means all staff from floor to manager, are working to be as efficient as possible. The managers also meet on the factory floor, so there is no ‘them and us’ scenarios.

Tecqua Protected Controller

As I’ve previously stated, manufacturing is alive and well in UK. We may never compete on Chinese, and Indian levels, but for high tech manufacturing and assembly, we easily compete with the US, Germany and Japan. Long may it continue to grow.

And I hope Siemens in Poole continues to be successful too. I think they should open their doors more often to the public, as it is a great way to showcase modern UK manufacturing and assembly.

Poole

Location of Poole, Dorset, England

Find The Engineer

0845 021 2468

www.findtheengineer.com

HS2. Is it HS Too Late?

HS2. Is It HS Too Late?

Here’s a controversial blog in some aspects. 

A non-scientific experiment carried out by myself and my co-director Nick Brown has resulted in a ‘Top Gear’ style result. 

Before I state what the result was, the relevance to this experiment was due to the regular cost updates and business return projection for the HS2 project. 

Of course we hear that this rail line will upturn a lot of countryside, and cause a lot of noise and pollution and split communities in half along its route (I wonder if I.K Brunel had this outcry?)

Looking at the figures and the proposition it is hard to see what return of investment the route may bring, but as with all things this big and directly controlled by a government, the costs can be recouped by other means.

The route seems a logical one. Connecting North & Northwest England with Midlands and Greater London. This model has worked well in Japan, North America and closer to home in France, linking Paris with Lyon, Toulouse and Marseille.

However, the key is, that these rail routes have operated for years and brought benefits to those countries. How can it bring investment into parts of England today? If this was built in the 80’s or even 90’s there is no question the benefits would outweigh the costs, but today?

Will people travel to/from London to Leeds or Manchester? Think about it. Twitter, Facebook, Skype, email, Dropbox, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn, Interactive channels and more and more. All these fabulous communication links. And the key? Working from home and hours that suit your clients is the way to work today. 

We, at Find The Engineer all work from home, and communicate with all the means above. We no longer travel into offices, or commute to work. Just a quick cuppa and into the study to start work at 6am for me! We have video conferences via Skype, use LinkedIn to publish papers. Blogs, emails and our websites to broadcast news and views. We use Twitter and Facebook for latest vacancy updates to the minute. Everything is very fast, and all from our recruiter’s home computer, tablet or phone.

So recently, us two directors’ had to attend a meeting in Mayfair, central London. 

Do we get the train, the tube? Or do we drive to the outskirts and commute in. 

Well, we drove right into Mayfair (paid congestion charge), parked outside the office, had our meeting. Walked across to a restaurant. Had lunch. Got in the car and drove back to Bristol. 

All for £90!! That’s £45 each. Compare that to the other two choices. Train £153 return. Each! Tube ticket £8.80 each. That’s over £160 each by public transport.

Not worth it. 

That’s why we work the way we do. It’s cheaper to work from home. 

Keeps our overheads low, which means customers get a better price. And let’s be honest if we do travel it's cheaper by car! 

So why bother with HS2? It’s 30 years too late!

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Simplicity Must Be The Key

Simplicity Must Be The Key

Summer is finally here! The mood is good, and business is growing in the UK, northern Europe and USA. So all is well, yes ? 

During the heady days of expansion and growth, a number of 'schemes' were implemented that quite frankly now look obviously like money-grabbing exercises. 

Harsh I know, but bear with me. 

Two main ones in our industry are speed cameras and car parking charges. 

'I know', you say, 'here we go again with the pro/cons of these schemes.' Well no actually. 

My point is that during the recession, the speed camera sections had financial cuts which meant they did not heavily enforce their districts, and even cut the amount of film put into the static camera housings. This surely smells of tax raising revenue over safety. If it was purely safety, then these operations would have held constant. On-street  parking charges have been in the news lately, as town centres are deserted, and the main reason is parking is too expensive. The answer cited by authorities for charging was to encourage people to use public transport. But that was never going to work. Why carry all your bags on a bus and train then walk home? Its not practical. So it was obviously a tax raising revenue. Why? Because authorities are scrapping charges to encourage people back into town in their CARS!

Recession is all about sorting the wheat from the chaff & regeneration as I have mentioned in an earlier blog. These two horrible schemes are now showing their true colours. This makes me think what else needs streamlining. Well in recruitment, authorities pay huge amounts for 'electronic' systems to recruit new staff. They are not needed. Just a phone call to an agency, or an ad on a job site, and agencies will call you. These electronic systems take three people to operate, approximately four mark-ups, and ultimately the engineer gets paid pennies, and the authority pays pounds. Simplify it. Get on the phone and ask for an engineer, and see what happens.

In traffic signals, so much emphasis is put on SCOOT/MOVA operations in cities now, that it works out cheaper in the peak hours to just have an engineer sat in front of a CCTV camera screen manually operating the lights. Why? because he's sat in front of the CCTV camera screen watching the program operate the lights anyway. Why pay for the system? > Simplify! If a junction is still congested, well, then there's no more you can do.

Finally, have employers thought about simplifying their own working practices? We at Find The Engineer all work from home (no really, its not a euphemism), we use Skype to video and conference call. We use the telephone and the wonders of the internet to communicate. Its cheaper, reduces ours and clients overheads and keeps traffic off the roads - hey! A congestion busting scheme.

So now its time for economic growth again, surely its time to look at ourselves and ask what we can do to simplify our working life and processes, as we probably have our personal lives...

...Simple

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