A690/Doxford international roundabout



There’s a roundabout near me with 24/7 timed lights. I can sit there at a red light between 7pm and 6am with no one else using the roundabout. Crackers.
Surely you don’t sit for 11 hours at a red light.

More seriously though, these short interval traffic lights are worse. When the lights change you end up with wasted seconds at the start and end of the green light as people move off and slow down.

Traffic lights with longer sequences allow a greater volume of cars though per hour
 
The traffic light timings have been changed travelling from town to the roundabout. Only 4/5 vehicles get through when lights are on green. Traffic builds up quite heavily back towards East Herrington. Any ideas why this has been done? Seems totally unnecessary to me.

Noticed the other day, going to Durham from A19 south, all the way round no stopping compared with two stop before. Best thing they can do with them lights are pull them down, same with 1231
 
Some traffic lights work on a timetable during peak hours and then fall back to something called VA or MOVA which flicks the lights to accommodate approaching vehicles (some just always run like that). There's also something called SCOOT that tweaks the red/green cycle in order to give priority to a particularly busy approach. I'm pretty certain the lights on this roundabout are just timetabled as it's frustrating as hell being sat there waiting yonks when there's noting happening. It doesn't mean it's totally rigid; it might use a different set of phases at different times of the day but it's still non-reactive.
I come in from Durham at 5.30am and Often stuck at lights for couple of minutes whilst nowt else is coming. Absolutely shite
Should only be used at peak times, fkn nanny state this is
 
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Noticed last Tuesday coming from Houghton way the lights onto the roundabout were only on green for a really short amount of time. Like you say, 3 or 4 cars getting through at a time. Went through yesterday and they were back to normal again.
There was a nasty accident Tuesday morning.
noticed earlier in the week it was backlogged from the A690 A19 roundabout down to the board inn. The queue went along silksworth rd to the entrance to Long Meadows. I couldn't see how far it went up the Durham rd towards at Chad's.
Was it Tuesday morning?
 
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Some traffic lights work on a timetable during peak hours and then fall back to something called VA or MOVA which flicks the lights to accommodate approaching vehicles (some just always run like that). There's also something called SCOOT that tweaks the red/green cycle in order to give priority to a particularly busy approach. I'm pretty certain the lights on this roundabout are just timetabled as it's frustrating as hell being sat there waiting yonks when there's noting happening. It doesn't mean it's totally rigid; it might use a different set of phases at different times of the day but it's still non-reactive.

Set that annoys me is the lights on St Michael's Way behind what used to be Revolution. The main road's really busy, as is the Hylton Road/St Michael's roundabout, and yet there's regularly traffic backed up onto the roundabout and causing chaos because the red light on that set comes on to allow...no one at all to come out of High St West from the Empire direction. It gives a ridiculously high frequency priority to that road, and often when I'm at those lights there's not a single car drives out.
 
Set that annoys me is the lights on St Michael's Way behind what used to be Revolution. The main road's really busy, as is the Hylton Road/St Michael's roundabout, and yet there's regularly traffic backed up onto the roundabout and causing chaos because the red light on that set comes on to allow...no one at all to come out of High St West from the Empire direction. It gives a ridiculously high frequency priority to that road, and often when I'm at those lights there's not a single car drives out.

Same thing, I guess. Most of that technology requires installation of the right kind of controller and a relatively modest licence fee. I guess they look at the cost and say fuck it.
 
They definitely changed the sequence last week joining from southbound a19. A few mornings the queues were back on the a19 making it an accident waiting to happen. Even when on the slip road it was taking around four or five sequences to get through in oppose to one or two.
They seem to have changed them back to normal this week.
 

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