Rockets

Just leaving this here Earl..... Even Rachel Aldred questions the accuracy of tubes in a report she did - I doubt she does this if the 99% accuracy you claim is correct. I very much suspect 99% applies to those placed in free-flowing traffic. I very much suspect you have to set them to either monitor traffic above 10km/h or set it to monitor under 10km/h - which is why they are supplied with default setting over 10km/h. Rachel Aldred said in this report: https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/download/74b26baccb2dbc0d26f1ca1773b3cdcd08402ef0e79fae1908f79d77c2cb7653/6168872/1-s2.0-S2213624X23001785-main.pdf There are known issues with data quality. Usually, reports used Automatic Traffic Counters (ATCs) to monitor traffic, in most cases ‘tubes’ across the road. These are imperfect. Parked or very slow-moving motor traffic may affect results; although in most cases, count sites were placed away from junctions where queueing is likely, which should reduce this problem. And remember...Southwark moved monitoring strips CLOSER to junctions and congestion.......perhaps they did not read the instructions properly.....

Earl, you are selectively clipping elements of the Time article. here is the full text for reference where MetroCount actually admit the fallibility to the Times. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/flaw-in-roadside-counters-for-low-traffic-schemes-j6wbwvzjn Traffic counters used to monitor the impact of low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) are not accurately recording vehicles during heavy congestion, The Times can reveal. Research suggests that between 5 and 35 per cent of cars, vans and lorries in slow moving or stop-start traffic are not being counted, calling into question the claimed success of the controversial schemes. Scores of LTNs were introduced during the pandemic and many more are planned. They use bollards, planters or camera enforcement to block through traffic in residential areas. The idea is to encourage people to walk or cycle instead of using their cars for short journeys. However, critics say the schemes force traffic on to a small number of surrounding roads, increasing congestion and pollution. Councils that have introduced LTNs have mostly hailed them as a success, pointing to data showing they have cut traffic both inside the areas and on some of their boundary roads. However, local residents have often been baffled by these claims, saying they have witnessed significant increases in congestion on the boundary roads. The company says the counters are “not designed to work” in stop-start traffic and are recommended to be used in “free-flowing conditions”. It explained: “Vehicles travelling very slowly might not be classified correctly, either the axle hits are too far apart so it splits them and places them into an unknown vehicle class, which doesn’t get included by default, or it attaches those axle hits to a vehicle in front or behind.” This means if there is little or no congestion at the measuring points before the LTN, the number of vehicles counted is likely to be accurate. However, if the LTN creates congestion at the count points, the post-implementation surveys will not report the true number of vehicles. There are also fears some counters may not have recorded vehicles travelling under 6.2 mph at all. One north London council has already been forced to admit it under-reported congestion on the boundary roads surrounding one LTN. Enfield council confessed that cars, vans and lorries travelling in congestion had not been recorded after the Fox Lane LTN was introduced because a software update had changed the setting without its traffic engineers realising. MetroCount said the council’s contractor appeared to have made “a deliberate choice to change the default setting, contrary to MetroCount documentation that advises caution when surveying slow-moving or congested traffic”. It added: “Every single report produced by our software lists all the parameters selected at the top of the report, including any speed range settings.” The Times approached eight inner London councils that introduced LTNs during the pandemic to ask what settings they had used on their counters, whether they had been adjusted after their schemes were implemented and whether they were confident in the accuracy of their data, but none of them answered. Almost all of the councils have presented their LTNs as a success, claiming traffic reductions even on some boundary roads. Enfield council conducted a manual count of vehicles on four roads that also had automatic counters. This survey found that the automatic counters under-recorded nearly 3,000 vehicles — the equivalent of 5.4 per cent — over a 12-hour period. Dozens of videos have emerged on social media of cars moving very slowly or being stationary over counters on LTNs’ heavily congested boundary roads. One resident of Enfield was so suspicious of the data reported by the council on his heavily congested road near the edge of an LTN that he trawled through 24 hours of CCTV to see how many vehicles had actually passed his home. Ediz Mevlit, a bus driver from Palmers Green, said: “The council said only 1,845 cars a day passed through my road on average and congestion had reduced. But when I watched the CCTV back, I counted 2,523, that’s about 30 per cent more — and I probably missed a few because I sped up the footage. I was so angry because they had been making me feel paranoid. It’s the gaslighting, telling me traffic has reduced when it hasn’t.” After Enfield council’s recording error was discovered, it re-ran all the data without the 6.2 mph filter and recovered some of the undercounted vehicles. This changed its reported data from a 5.7 per cent increase on boundary roads to 8 per cent but critics say new data still did not record vehicles during heavy congestion because of the counters’ inherent limitations. In a report on Hackney council’s LTNs, John Wilde, a director at Charles & Associates Consulting Engineers, said: “Automatic traffic count surveys cannot be considered as broadly accurate [on congested roads]. A CCTV method survey would be more robust, and would also capture the stationary or slow-moving traffic conditions, whilst also allowing for clearer assessment of the peak periods.” Automatic counters have also been the primary source of data used by academic studies suggesting that LTNs work. This week a petition demanding the government carry out an independent review into LTNs surpassed 10,000 signatures, forcing a response. It said the Department for Transport had already appointed the University of Westminster to “undertake an independent evaluation of active travel schemes funded in 2020-21”. The director of the University of Westminster’s Active Travel Academy is Professor Rachel Aldred, a former trustee of the London Cycling Campaign, which has been one of the most vociferous advocates of LTNs. Enfield council said new traffic data on its boundary roads meant there was “no material change” to its previous conclusion that the Fox Lane LTN should be kept. It added that it did not rely on automatic counters alone and used other methods of assessment such as bus journey times to consider the impact of its schemes. The council also said it was not appropriate to compare directly the data between the manual counts and the automatic count, or draw conclusions from the disparity because they were not conducted at exactly the same spots on the roads. MetroCount says that its tube-based counters are still very accurate for traffic volumes, even under very slow and congested traffic conditions because the axles passing are continuously recording. It says that in most circumstances this would exceed 95 per cent accuracy but that the reporting of volumes under slow-moving conditions requires users to change the default settings. In a statement it added: “Our standard settings are recommended in normal free-flow circumstances and when also wanting to display very accurate speeds, classes, headway, gaps and other higher level information in addition to the basic traffic volume. Under these conditions accuracy routinely approaches 99 per cent or higher, as verified by many departments of transport globally. “All automatic counting technologies will have some limitations in very high congestion, and even manual and video counting is known to have accuracy issues for long-term counting. It is incumbent upon users to know how, where and when to best install traffic counters and use complex associated software.” The residents feeling the impact of LTNs It was a struggle for Christiane Comins to get to the protest outside Islington town hall this week but she got out her crutches and gritted her teeth. Comins, 53, has multiple sclerosis (Jack Malvern writes). While she has a blue badge that gives her permission to drive through her neighbourhood, this is of no use for the delivery drivers she needs for essentials or the friends she relies on for help. Her neighbourhood, in the Barnsbury area of Islington, is the latest in the north London borough to be proposed as a low-traffic neighbourhood (LTN). It prompted a protest of more than 100 residents outside the town hall on Tuesday. “Because I’m disabled, I’m not only reliant on taxi journeys to or from the hospital but also reliant on friends coming to visit me,” she said. “I’m reliant on food deliveries to the house. They won’t be able to come. I may just drown in a pool of my own tears. I used to say I should jump in the Thames, but I can’t climb the bridge any more.” She said her MS comes and goes and that she dreads returning to a bedridden state. The last time, her friends were able to visit and even hold a party for her. “That can’t happen now if Barnsbury LTN goes ahead. I have MS and it’s a bugger. I go up and down. “Of course I support cyclists, but do they need every street in the neighbourhood? No, they don’t.” She worries not only for other people with disabilities but for local shops. “I worry a lot for some businesses like our butcher, who is feeling the pinch from [existing] LTNs. It’s quite frightening how little say you have.” Others at the protest complained that their daughters felt unsafe walking home at night through streets deserted of traffic. Nicholas Mason, 78, a retired solicitor, said his journey time to pick up his granddaughter from school in Tottenham, north London, had tripled. Jonathan Harrison, 75, a retired architect, added that the zones were frustrating his journeys to hospital for cancer treatment. A few weeks ago he received £480 in traffic fines for driving past a camera near his home. “I never saw a sign saying don’t come in this road. I had no idea they’d closed it. I think it’s totally outrageous. There’s been no consultation. None of this was in their manifesto, that they’re going to make it impossible to drive. It’s a pointless, ridiculous, vengeful policy.”

Nah, sorry - you can't throw that back to me...you've done this before on many occasions. You're incredibly prejudiced - shockingly so in fact. Maybe you're trying to be funny..who knows. You're happy to accuse anyone who dares question your way of thinking as some sort of right wing bigot yet you're happy to indulge in bigotry. You can't have it both ways but your attitude is reflective of so many nowadays. It's sad and incredibly hypocritical.

How much has it increased by and when did it increase? Perhaps those who can afford cycle hangers are now seen as a revenue generating opportunity like people with gardens or cars? 😉 Of course it could also be that the council are skint (but only in areas that are not Dulwich Square of course!) #sorrycouldntresist

I very much suspect the 99% accuracy applies to "free flowing" traffic - MetroCounts words not mine. Rest assured when I have time to find the MetroCounter counter manual my paste came from then I will post it. If it does indeed come from a MetroCount installation instruction manual will you stand corrected and issue a grovelling apology? Or will you try to deflect and distract or perhaps construct some reason why they recommend installing in free-flowing traffic and avoiding congestion....?

They have tried to wrestle this confliction previously....on numerous occasions. And yet......;-)

Oh my......what a wonderfully prejudiced statement that is....

We will agree to disagree.....(not for the first time, not for the last time) Search MetroCount installation instructions and you will find the below...it's all publicly available Site Selection As with any axle-based classifier, also consider the following: Vehicles should be travelling at a constant velocity. Try to avoid bends, intersections and steep inclines. Vehicles should be free-flowing. Try to avoid areas with congestion. Explain to me then why Southwark decided to move the counters near Court Lane to down near Melford Road.....a co-incidence or oversight perhaps....perhaps they weren't reading the instructions supplied by MetroCount!!!

What I don't understand is those that are clamouring for this says there is an urgent need for more teachers yet they also say there are lots of places at schools for the children leaving private school due to dwindling pupil numbers (at primary especially). Surely then the teacher "gap" can, in part, be plugged by this? This does seem a very blinkered, dog whistle attack on a certain part of private education and it will be interesting to see how the courts (and Europe) views it. Given the government accelerated the rollout to happen in the middle of a school year (which no-one thought was a good idea) probably shows they may not believe they are on strong ground - it feels like a "beg for forgiveness rather than ask for permission" situation.

Debunked by who exactly.....? Perhaps you can explain why Metrocount has a filter for sub-10km/h readings or why they state on their instructions: Vehicles should be free-flowing. Try to avoid areas with congestion. That seems to be counter to your "debunked" argument?

On my journey to work today at every red light cyclists jumped the lights. They did not kill or injure anyone. They were not killed or injured by anyone. But if they had been killed or injured whilst jumping the red light then that would be used to defend bad cycling by saying cars kill and injure more people than bikes do.

https://www.metrocount.com/sites/default/files/2023-05/speedaccuracy.pdf MetroCount's own installation instructions state: Site Selection As with any axle-based classifier, also consider the following: Vehicles should be travelling at a constant velocity. Try to avoid bends, intersections and steep inclines. Vehicles should be free-flowing. Try to avoid areas with congestion. Now, perhaps Earl you should be asking yourself why the tubes come with a sub 10km/h monitoring filter function, why Metrocount have such a facility and why Enfield had activated it. Why? Because the machines aren't very accurate at monitoring at those speeds. Now pair that with the fact Southwark actively moved their tubes closer to congestion and it doesn't take a genius to work out why that might be and what games these councils like to play to try and get the results they so desire.

Here is someone who does know how they work Earl (ExDulwicher - what happened to them I miss them - they were an island of sanity in a sea full of delusion) and look what they say about their accuracy in slow moving and congested traffic....and why Southwark was moving to Vivacity sensors.... Rockets said: Is it a co-incidence that the dashboard numbers are not being updated and many of the tubes seem to have been removed completely after people became more aware of their sub 10km/h limitation? Are the council tryng to mitigate potential exposure? Ex-Dulwicher said.....I suspect you've actually hit on part of the issue. Southwark (as with many boroughs in London and cities outside London as well) are moving a lot of their monitoring to Vivacity sensors. They're the camera type things with double lenses you can see on a lot of lampposts around the area and they're vastly more accurate, they can measure pedestrian, bike, car, truck, bus etc very accurately and also measure things like turning flow. They're largely immune to congestion issues and slow moving traffic, or at least can process this as part of the whole package (speed low, flow low, count low = congestion).

Look Earl, you lifted your rebuttal and your "proof" (almost word for word I hasten to add) on pneumatic counters from the WeArePossible website...so you rail against Twitterati and right-wing groups that you have convinced yourself are at the heart of the opposition to these measures whilst you lift your info from the website of a climate action group....now where is that shrug shoulders emoji.... https://www.wearepossible.org/latest-news/your-ltn-questions

You might think it is nonsense but others do not and the weight of evidence suggests our position is a more reflection of reality than yours. Let's look.... The manufacturer admitted they are not accurate under slow moving traffic (10kmph) Southwark council stated they were phasing them out and replacing them with more accurate counters Even our dear friend Ex-Dulwicher (who works in this sort of stuff) admitted that they are not accurate when used in heavy traffic conditions. So combine all of the above with the fact that Southwark actively moved monitoring strips closer to choke points (to use their weaknesses to their advantage) then my statement is anything but nonsense. I don't know where Lambeth have put the monitoring strips in West Dulwich but if they are in areas of slow moving traffic then the pneumatic strips will not be providing an accurate reflection of traffic levels - that is not nonsense, that is a fact.

Dulwich Library/Plough junction is particular hot-spot for bad cycling - I just wonder what can be done there to try and resolve the problem. It seems some cyclists think the green pedestrian light applies to them.

Are Lambeth still using e flawed pneumatic counters? I thought councils were not using those anymore because of the issue of flawed counting or are some still happy to use them because it allows them to manipulate the process?

The more that can be done about crash for cash is to have more police and council presence in the areas where the criminals are operating to determine them. I see them circling around the Court Lane area, driving around and round in circles looking for their next victim.

This is interesting as I was looking at the local crime figures earlier this year (the catalyst for which was Cllr Leeming telling people there was no increase in crime but a perceived increase in crime) but there was actual month on month increases in crime and the trend was definitely upwards. Then, the police stopped reporting crime stats, or at least publishing them on a ward by ward basis across the whole of London. I think they have started again but I will take a look to see if the upward trend is continuing. Malumbu, if you don't have a go about the authorities about the problems with crime then who do you suggest becomes the focal point - after all it is the responsibility of both the police and council to keep us safe.

Yes we have been saying this for a long time and it is actually the pro-LTN, pro-cycle lobby that has been the catalyst for the very culture war that they now accuse others of starting. Many in the pro- lobby are now reaping what they sowed. FM you're right, the blind "cyclists are never wrong because they don't kill as many people as cars" narrative is incredibly damaging to their own cause. It's like those people trying to defend Starmer's government by saying that their sleaze isn't as bad as the Tory sleaze....they are kind of missing the bleedingly obvious point...

I didn't realise that but looking at the stats it does seem to be true. I do know the Dutch have a high per capita car ownership rate and a lot drive and cycle but why the mortality rate is so much higher than ours is interesting. Anyone have any clue?

Indeed, it just shows the lengths some on the pro-LTN cycle/lobby will go. I would put good money the same person posts under another name on this forum as well.....

To be fair Malumbu, some on here, rail against car use, champion a cleaner environment yet act in a most hypocritical way when it suits them to. You know you can be a cyclist and not like the way a lot of cyclists behave. I am, I am also a car driver and hate the way some people drive and not afraid to say it. It just seems there is some vow of silence amongst many in the cycle lobby to acknowledge that there might be a problem being caused by their fellow cyclists - this where the cycle cult reputation comes from. I think you'll find that history shows that the biggest lobby group working on councils to install LTNs was the cycle lobby - in all it's forms and to suggest otherwise is blinkered.

Interesting article from the Beeb on the challenges of housebuilding https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgw7x4y5rzo

Many happy returns Earl! It seems 2007 was a good year to join the forum as I did too!! One thing that hasn't changed is The Castle!