Home zones are residential areas designed with streets to be places for people, instead of just for motor traffic. The nine pilot home zone schemes are in Ealing (London), Lambeth (London), Leeds, Manchester, Magor Village (Wales), Nottingham, Peterborough, Plymouth and Sittingbourne (Kent). Although the home zone sites chosen are very different both in scale and type, none has particularly high vehicle flows and most have few accidents. Home zones are not principally safety schemes but more aimed at improving the quality of life. TRL was commissioned by the Department for Transport (DfT) to assess the effectiveness of the pilot home zone schemes in achieving the aims of home zones. As part of this process, TRL carried out 'before' and 'after' monitoring including: interview surveys with adults and children; collection of traffic flow, traffic speed and accident data; video recording; air quality measurements and noise surveys. The 'before' surveys were carried out in 2000 and the 'after' surveys between 2002 and 2004. 'After' surveys were not carried out at the Lambeth and Peterborough schemes because the works were not completed on site within the monitoring period of this project. Therefore this report brings together the results from seven of the nine zones. (Author/publisher)
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