Go fast to go slow and go slow to go fast?

August 1, 2007

Dear Editor.

(RE: “Experts Tackle Traffic Congestion at RAND Forum.”)

Whether in a bus, car, truck or van the journey time can be significantly reduced by a road system that allows all commuters to reach their destination without stopping.

When you have a crucial bridge or bottleneck to negotiate this becomes even more important.

Furthermore in the event of a blockage on any road, and this goes against all current politically correct thinking, if the blockage is screened off correctly the vehicles passing that blockage should go past it faster not slower!

If you have two lanes reduced to one, then the traffic has to travel past the restriction at twice the speed to maintain vehicle flow rates.

Go fast to go slow and go slow to go fast?

No this is not a puzzle. But when you get in a car and drive it helps if you do not have to stop till you get were you want to be!

The major problem is the roads infrastructure is designed to slow you down. This is called world's best practice and it has been wrong for over 80 years.

This slowing down is so that the road death toll is reduced.

But the majority of deaths occur in built up areas and at low speed and usually at intersections. Our intersections are designed to keep you driving safely without stopping.

If the road infrastructure cannot achieve free and uninterrupted vehicle flows no technology will help!

The solution to traffic jams is not the size of the road but the ability of an intersection to work correctly.

Traffic lights just stop traffic, roundabouts are for light traffic and freeway intersections are fundamentally flawed. They fail under heavy traffic as they also only work with light traffic. Why do you ask? Because you enter and exit all traffic from one lane.

At www.ubtsc.com.au we have models of intersections that work at 100 percent efficiency.

They allow all vehicles entering an intersection to exit that intersection left, right or ahead without stopping all day every day without fail. Yes even during the worst peak traffic you can imagine.

It’s called Liquid Flow and its only limitation is the maximum speed a road can be traversed safely. Mathematically vehicle speeds go from zero to infinity.

None of this is worth anything if government at all levels dismisses it as too expensive! It isn't.

Think outside the square for solutions and look for the positives of what this means.

Imagine being able to cross town in peak hour traffic without stopping at a single intersection

Jozef Goj
Director & CEO
UBTSC Pty. Ltd.
Colo Heights, Australia