The York Study

A central part of the project is an experiment which will be carried out to study driver behaviour in the city of York. This experiment will aim to measure driver response to a planned capacity reduction on the road network. An initial study looked at the closure of Lendal Bridge - part of York's inner Ring Road which will occurred in early September 2000. The study was interrupted by fuel shortages and flooding. However, data is available

The study recorded licence plates at a number of sites in and around the incident area and focussed on movement across the river from the south-west to the north-east. We recorded the licence plates for all river crossings and for main routes on to and off the inner ring road as well as selected sites on the outer ring road.

The follow up study concentrated on the partial closure of Fishergate, a major route into the city of York. The road was partially closed to repair a collapsed sewer. Surveys were undertaken to study the results of this planned intervention. Data is available from the fishergate study.

Coupled with other surveys, we hope to be able to build up a coherent picture of the methods that drivers use to choose their routes through the city and also how they change their routes in response to congestion. We will be doing this using a combinations of surveys and interviews with local residents.

Another aim of the project is to make this data publicly available in order that it could be used by other researchers who are attempting to develop models of traffic congestion. (The licence plates will be scrambled to ensure public privacy)

A previous closure of Lendal bridge occurred in the 70s and was reported in Traffic and Engineering Control (February and November issues 1979). This is also reported in the Cairns and Goodwin "Traffic Impact of Highway Capacity Reduction" report.