South Yorkshire county council has recently begun installation of a compact urban traffic control system, which will eventually control a large proportion of the traffic signals in the county. The first application of the system was at park square roundabout in Sheffield. This very large six entry junction was signalised as part of a larger traffic management scheme which will be connected to the urban traffic control system. The junction carries 6000 vehicles in a peak hour from the A57, A61 and A616 and also forms the city centre end of the link with the M1. At peak hours the roundabout was responsible for considerable congestion and was the site of a large number of injury accidents. Proposals for redevelopment in the sheaf valley area, which includes park square, predicted an increased traffic load on the over-stretched junction. In line with the council's policy of adopting low cost schemes which avoid major road building where possible a traffic management scheme using urban traffic control techniques was proposed. In order to include park square within the controlled area it was necessary to install traffic signals at the roundabout entries. The signal linking scheme was designed to provide progressions for the major traffic movements, but also to try and reduce the high vehicle speeds on the roundabout. (a) for the covering abstract of the seminar see IRRD 273510.
Abstract