ITS LONDON: London’s Green Wave Potential

A PERSONAL BEGINNING TO THE INTERVENTION

As a driver myself, for the past four years of driving I have unexplainably been personally fascinated with traffic control and flow – trying to understand the reasons why traffic lights are and aren’t placed at certain intersections, why some turn-protected signals change before or after the majority of traffic goes through, why some consecutive lights are well-timed and easy to travel through while others have each driver stopping and starting with every new intersection. The reasons behind these questions fascinated me. With this intervention project, I saw an opportunity to take this interest and expand it into a project by which I might be able to posit solutions in the traffic signal problem areas within London.

BUT TRAFFIC SIGNALS IN LONDON PARTICULARLY ?

With Ken Livingstone as mayor of London, the London environmental transport initiatives have been and currently are in a state of transition. An effort is being made by Livingstone to seriously reduce London’s carbon emissions as seen in his creation of groups like the London Hydrogen Partnership and the London Energy Partnership in his first tern as Mayor of London. With his new Energy Strategy, Livingston has committed himself to reduce London’s emissions by a full 20% by 2010.

SO WHY ATTEMPT TO ADD TO THESE ALREADY FORWARD-THINKING TRAFFIC INITIATIVES?

It appeared to me that through my research into Livingstone’s initiatives that there were even small things that could (and should!) be re-examined as the city is just becoming more and more congested. What information could I bring to light to a few interested London motorists and where could these people be?

LMAG AND NEWSPAPER READERS AS RESOURCES

The London Motorists Action Group (LMAG) and readers of the Motorist sections of both the Guardian and the Telegraph newspapers both became target audiences for the small but hopefully significant research I did regarding Traffic Signal Green Waves. On their forums and blogs I was able to post links to my ITS LONDON: London’s Green Waves E-Book on which comments were allowed so as to facilitate more discussion on something so effective but as simple as Traffic Signal optimization.

THE PROCESS:

This E-Book project consisted first and foremost of gathering information – information on travel times and congested zones across Central London, an in-depth understanding of traffic flow and the algorithms used to reduce delays and amount of time stopped (thereby reducing carbon emissions), and a list of the current traffic initiatives proposed by Ken Livingstone.

I also spent time getting to know a number of motorists on both the newspaper forums and LMAG threads in order to gain an understanding of the current atmosphere regarding traffic signals in and around London according to local motorists who are forced to do the drive daily.

After that, it was a matter of collecting all my data into an easily accessible E-Book format which I could distribute both physically and electronically. Physically, I decided to tape a number of the E-Books onto Parking Meters, which would hopefully capture the attention of motorists paying for their parking. The back of the E-Book contained the link to my created blog onto which interested followers are now able to comment and generate more discussion. I also put the link to the online E-Book on the LMAG “Ken Livingstone Forum” as well as a number of recent postings on the motorist sections of the Guardian and Telegraph websites to attract the already traffic-interested Londoners to my E-Book to mingle my own ideas with theirs.

AFTERTHOUGHTS

With this project, I hoped that I could simultaneously make a small opportunity for difference in the stifling traffic situation in London, as well as a chance to do a little research on a topic I have always been interested in. I also thought it would be a great chance to connect with some of the motorists who drive here on a regular basis as I am very fond of driving and was keen on gaining a better understanding of the traffic situations at work here.

In retrospect, I wish I could have maybe had a chance to rent a car myself for a day and experience first-hand a number of the traffic light timings around the city. This probably would have given me a richer and truer first-hand experience rather than just learning second-hand from forums and blogs, but I think it is understandable given the small budget I had to work with. Overall, I am very glad at my chance to work on such a project as it really allowed me to pursue a personal interest of mine as well as to communicate with a section of local Londoners I probably never would have been in contact with otherwise.

Link to blog: http://greenwavelondon.blogspot.com

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