Traffic management schemes are at the centre of bids for the first years of transport innovation funding, which are aimed at boosting national productivity.
With ‘up to £200M a year’ earmarked for charging schemes, the transport innovation fund, worth £290M in 2008/09, and potentially rising to £2.5bn by 2014/15, will also support transport priorities identified in the regions.
The Department for Transport asked the eight regional development agencies to recommend ‘productivity’ schemes, due to enter the programme next year (Surveyor, 2 February).
The RDAs have now responded to the challenge of putting forward schemes for which a business plan can be produced by July, and can be implemented on the ground by 2009/10, with schemes for improving motorway traffic management featuring alongside railway improvements.
The three Northern Way RDAs hope to tackle congestion on the 168km trans-Pennine M62 with a new ‘route action plan’.
The Northwest, Yorkshire & Humber, and the Northeast see the TIF allocation as a way of levering in the investment for a ‘best use strategy’ for the motorway that was envisaged in the Northern Way business plan 2005-2008 published last year. While the document stated that capacity improvements were needed, it accepted that traffic management would be the solution in the short term.
Under the plan, ramp metering would be introduced, using signals at peak times, with intelligent timing of the red and green cycles to control the entry of traffic on to the motorway, in order to cause minimal disruption to flows.
Meanwhile, the South West Regional Development Agency is hoping to secure funding for an integrated traffic management scheme for the M4 from London to Wales, and the M5 from Exeter to Birmingham, involving the installation of new intelligent transport system technology.
The SWRDA believes the schemes to improve incident management and provide better information to motorists would be eligible for the first round of DfT’s TIF for national productivity.
SWRDA transport manager, Dan Okey, said: ‘The M4/M5 scheme could work in the short-term timescale the DfT is looking for.’
A DfT spokesman said it would now decide on proposals for the TIF on the basis of the extent to which resources would most effectively and sustainably meet the ‘high-priority key objectives’ of improving productivity and tackling congestion.
A shortlist will be drawn up and the department will then work with the relevant delivery agents to work up the business cases, before deciding on how to allocate the funds.