The Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) in the UK is scrutinising gantry design. The intention of the project is to investigate whether lightweight gantries would be capable of carrying the full set of signs currently in use on the M42 Active Traffic Management (ATM) trial. After initial finite element analysis, full scale crash tests are giving an indication of what needs to be done to make lightweight designs safe. This article discusses the testing and design of a prototype structure for a passively safe, lightweight gantry. For the covering abstract see ITRD E139966.
Abstract