The £10m Satnav revolution to help you avoid roadworks for ever… pity it’s too late for the millions of families facing gridlock on roads TODAY, chaos at the busiest airports on record and tortuous rail journeys as the summer getaway begins
- Street Manager will harvest data from water, electricity and gas companies
- It will also make it easier to know which roads will have temporary traffic lights
- From today, parts of UK’s biggest intercity line will be out of action for 16 days
- Passengers will endure diverted routes, change to different trains or take bus
So you’re heading off on holiday and you’re stuck in a traffic jam on the M1 with no end in sight.
If only there was a really smart app that could have told you how to have avoided this all-too-familiar motorway nightmare.
Well, soon there will be. A £10million website is being developed which will automatically tell satnavs where roadworks are taking place to help drivers avoid congestion.
Street Manager will harvest data from water, electricity and gas companies, and local councils. It will also make it easier to know which roads will have temporary traffic lights.
A £10million website is being developed which will automatically tell satnavs where roadworks are taking place to help drivers avoid congestion
The site, expected to be up and running by next April, will contain details in advance of planned works.
Transport officials said putting all the data in one place would help apps such as Waze and Google Maps provide up-to-date information.
Last night, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said: ‘Everyone has experienced the annoyance of travel that is disrupted by roadworks, but the systems we currently use to help companies communicate this aren’t fit for purpose and need changing.’
Utility companies may also be forced to dig up the pavement instead of the road to reduce impact on traffic.
There are around 2.5million roadworks under way in England each year. Current sources of information about works are often incomplete or out of date, critics say.
Traffic on the A14 near Cambridge on ‘Frantic Friday’ today as people begin summer getaways
Pictured: Traffic congestion on Friday evening as drivers endured queues of up to 90 minutes on some routes
The Department of Transport Street Manager initiative can’t come soon enough. Families rushing off for the school holidays today face gridlock on roads, chaos at the busiest airports on record, and tortuous rail journeys.
From today, large sections of Britain’s biggest intercity line will be out of action for 16 days.
And a key section south of Warrington on the West Coast main line, which connects London with Glasgow and Edinburgh, will shut until August 4 while engineering works take place.
Passengers will have to endure diverted routes, change to different trains or take bus replacements.
Traffic queues on the A14 near Cambridge today as millions of people take to the roads
Those affected include travellers heading north on staycations in the Lake District, Glasgow and Blackpool.
Northbound services between London Euston and Glasgow via Birmingham will terminate at Crewe, while those travelling south will terminate at Preston.
Passengers travelling to or from Birmingham have been advised to take a rail replacement bus service between Preston and Crewe.
The RAC warned of delays between 15 minutes to an hour over the weekend on major routes such as the M6 and M1 northbound.
Thirteen million cars will hit the roads today as five million families battled regular commuters to get a head start on their summer holidays as schools broke up for summer
Meanwhile, air-traffic controllers are preparing for the busiest summer on record. They have already seen the busiest day on record with 8,863 flights handled on July 5.
Today, controllers expect 8,800 flights in and out of UK airports,
As well as longer queues at airports, flights are more likely to be delayed in the peak summer months when airspace is more crowded.
Holidaymakers using Heathrow will be hoping to avoid a repeat of Thursday’s mayhem, when thousands of BA passengers endured delays of up to two hours after the baggage system broke down.
| Date | Leisure trips by car | Major roads likely to be very busy between | Major roads likely to be less busy between | Expected longest delays on major roads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frantic Friday | 5.3m | Between 11am and 6.45pm | After 8pm | M1 south J16 to J6: 89-minute delay from 7.45am with an average traffic speed of 20mph. M25 anticlockwise J4 to J1: 54-minute delay from 2.45pm with an average traffic speed of 7mph |
| Saturday | 5m | Between 11am and 2pm | Before 9.30am or after 4.30pm | M20 west J7 to J3: 19-minute delay from 9.30am with an average traffic speed 18mph. A30 west Pathfinder Village to Whiddon Down: 15-minute delay from 2.45pm with an average traffic speed of 24mph |
| Sunday | 3.1m | Between 1pm and 3pm | Before 11am or after 8pm | M1 north J12 to J16: 40-minute delay from 1.30pm with an average traffic speed of 24mph. M25 anticlockwise J4 to J1: 35-minute delay from 7pm with an average traffic speed of 13mph |
| Monday | 2.8m | Between 11.30am and 6pm | After 7pm | M6 north J5 to J10a: 37-minute delay from 12.30pm with an average traffic speed of 17mph. M25 anticlockwise J17 to J12: 37-minute delay with an average traffic speed of 18mph |