New measures announced to deal with congestion

bus-163916_640The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has announced a series of measures aimed at directly tackling growing congestion on London’s roads and improving reliability for all road users.

Transport for London (TfL) will take immediate steps using new and improved strategic management, technology and communication to tackle the problem of congestion in London head-on. The measures being announced include better communication directly with road users to allow them to plan their journeys, and better collaboration to reduce disruption from roadworks.

As part of the plans, the Mayor is also setting out specific measures to increase the reliability of bus services, including investing £50m in bus priority schemes. The bus is London’s most popular form of public transport and the most efficient motorised use of road space, with almost 2.4bn journeys made by bus in the capital each year – half of all bus journeys in England. Getting more people using buses will help tackle road congestion, and reversing the congestion that has caused bus passenger numbers to fall over the last few years is a key priority for the Mayor.

As well as outlining measures to improve the reliability of bus services, the plans announced today include reducing disruption caused by planned or unplanned incidents, and improving journey time reliability so that all road journeys have minimum delay in any traffic conditions. The Government will also be lobbied for greater powers to manage road works including increasing the scope of fixed penalty notices and legislating around the use of cranes and hoardings that impact on the road network.

Specific measures announced today to tackle congestion include:

· Ensuring that the infrastructure that supports the road network, including traffic signals and road surfaces, are reliable, faults are minimised and repairs are carried out faster.

· Communicating better with road users to allow people to make more effective decisions about their journeys based on the most accurate and up-to-date information.

· Collaborating more efficiently with local authorities, utility companies and developers to reduce the impact of planned road works.

The plans are targeted at easing the immediate congestion problems facing London. This is alongside other more long-term strategic approaches being developed as part of the Mayor’s Transport Strategy, due to be published in Spring 2017.

Simon Moore, CBI Director for London & South, said:

“To ensure London remains an attractive place to work and do business, it is vital that we have good quality and reliable infrastructure networks. With congestion across our road network highlighted as a top transport priority for firms, businesses will welcome the Mayor’s package of measures to ease blockers across our roads.

“Greater collaboration between local boroughs, utility providers and developers and using technology more effectively to reduce traffic impacts are key short term solutions to improving our network. In the longer term, bolder solutions will be required to increase our deteriorating road capacity.”

Natalie Chapman, Head of Policy for London, Freight Transport Association, said:

“FTA strongly welcomes the Mayor’s focus on managing congestion, and hopes that this approach will produce benefits for Londoners. The capital needs more than 360,000 tonnes of goods moved on its roads every day – construction materials to build new homes, food and drink to restaurants, clothes to shops and of course the waste to be taken away – so, it’s in everyone’s interests if these goods can get where they need to be efficiently.”

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