Skip to main content

Illuminated road studs aid roundabout safety

In a bid to improve safety at the Sheriffhall roundabout near Edinburgh, Scotland, Clearview Traffic has been working with BEAR Scotland on an innovative accident reduction project at the complex six-arm gyratory roundabout which is used by over 42,000 vehicles per day. The project, which Clearview says is the first of its kind in the UK, uses the company’s IRS2 intelligent hardwired road stud to increase driver awareness and improve lane discipline on and off the roundabout. Improvements and efficien
July 15, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
In a bid to improve safety at the Sheriffhall roundabout near Edinburgh, Scotland, 557 Clearview Traffic has been working with BEAR Scotland on an innovative accident reduction project at the complex six-arm gyratory roundabout which is used by over 42,000 vehicles per day.

The project, which Clearview says is the first of its kind in the UK, uses the company’s IRS2 intelligent hardwired road stud to increase driver awareness and improve lane discipline on and off the roundabout.

Improvements and efficiencies made to the traffic signal-controlled roundabout in recent years have dramatically increased its capacity. BEAR Scotland was keen to ensure safety measures were improved in line with the increased use of the roundabout. Investigations found that inadvertent lane drifting was a significant contributory factor to negotiating it safely.

To address this issue, whilst at the same time causing minimal impact on the existing road markings and supporting infrastructure of the roundabout, BEAR Scotland and Clearview Traffic devised a unique road stud layout scheme that would guide the A720 traffic from either direction safely around and off the roundabout.

With the new system in place, as soon as the traffic signal on the entrance to the roundabout turns green, studs embedded in the road surface immediately illuminate and guide drivers onto the appropriate lanes of the roundabout. As the traffic signal turns red, all the studs on that section switch off and the studs on the next section illuminate as the corresponding traffic signal turns green. In this way, drivers now get an illuminated green phase to guide them all the way around and off the roundabout, with clear visual definition of the lanes to heighten lane discipline and reduce preventable collisions.

Related Content

  • May 8, 2015
    Data holds the key to combating VRU casualties
    Accident analysis software can help authorities identify common causes and make best use of their budgets, as Will Baron explains. More than 1.2 million people die on the world’s roads each year and according to the World Health Organisation, half of these are pedestrians and vulnerable road users (those whose vehicle does not have a protective shell, such as motorcyclists and cyclists). While much has been done to improve road safety and cut the number of deaths and serious injuries on our roads, a great d
  • January 30, 2012
    Road design as a primary aid to speed enforcement?
    Letty Aarts, senior researcher, SWOV institute for road safety research, the Netherlands, discusses how road design can act as a primary aid to speed enforcement
  • April 8, 2014
    UK defaults to hard shoulder running to expand motorway capacity
    Hard shoulder running has become the UK’s default response to increasing motorway capacity as Colin Sowman reports. Facing a predicted 46% increase in traffic levels by 2040 and the current economic recovery leading to more people travelling to, from and for work leaves the UK government under short- and long-term pressure to increase the capacity on the main motorway network. Particular sections of motorways are already experiencing repeated, sometimes tidal, congestion and both tight Treasury limits and t
  • January 31, 2012
    Washington State testing Astucia SolarLite road studs
    This weekend, Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) maintenance crews plan to install Astucia SolarLite solar-powered road studs as part of a test project on the centerline of a stretch of SR 530 which has a history of run-off-the-road collisions.