Below you will find a summary of the Transport Review commissioned by Bramley Parish Council from LvW Highways Ltd.  The full version of the report is available to download at the bottom of the page.   You will also note that LvW Highways Ltd have created a series of model videos which are hosted externally on Dropbox.com which is an free to access file sharing site and not under the control of Bramley Parish Council.  

Introduction

LvW Highways Ltd are commissioned by Bramley Parish Council to assess the operation of the highway network considering the impact of the recently approved residential developments at Minchens Lane (Planning Application No. 14/01075/OUT) and Sherfield Road (Planning Application No. 15/02708/OUT) and the impact at Bramley level crossing on road traffic.

In order to assess the operation of the Bramley level crossing, LvW Highways Ltd had to extract traffic survey data contained within the transport assessments for the approved Minchin's Lane residential development (200 dwellings) and the approved Sherfield Road residential development (50 dwellings). The transport assessment for the Minchin's Lane residential development undertook traffic surveys in 2012 and the transport assessment for the Sherfield Road residential development updated some of these surveys in 2014.

Results

This section outlines the flow and queue results generated by the model. As a comparison, AM peak results have been included, although these have not been assessed directly in this analysis work.

The model output videos for the peak hours (08:00 to 09:00 and 17:00 to 18:00) are available on the file sharing web site “Dropbox” at the following website address:-

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/da8a2hyo10kc9f8/AACeNlJM0uggZJNHpmm_rd6Ma?dl=0

The models have been set to simulate on a random seed. This essentially means that each run of the modelled time period is unique to effectively represent the random nature of journey start times (i.e. each seed releases vehicles into the network at random intervals – but always within the matrix and profile settings).

By running each model an animation of vehicles moving through the network is produced allowing the operation and interaction of the junctions and vehicles to be viewed. This allows problems to be quickly identified.

The baseline model (without development) shows that when the level crossing closes for the modelled times a greater frequency of queues of around 25 to 30 vehicles build up on Sherfield Road. When the level crossing opens the queues quickly dissipate.

The "with the development" models show that the proposed highway network operates with some extra queueing and delays.
When the level crossing barriers closes there is some discernible difference in the queue lengths compared to the baseline model. Queues continue to fluctuate in length between 15 and 30 vehicles. The extent of the queue from the level crossing along Sherfield Road reaches Longbridge Road in length and impacts on the existing junctions of Bramley Lane and Longbridge Road.

When the level crossing barriers are raised the traffic that has been held is released and allowed to move off along the highway network. The platoon of traffic is able to efficiently move along the highway network without any significant delay. The model demonstrates that the highway network does not delay the platoons of traffic to such a degree that queues form and impacts on the free flow of traffic movements.

The model shows that the proposed developments have minimal impact on the length of queues caused by the additional vehicles associated with the residential developments. The queues generated by the level crossing do not significantly interfere with the operation of the existing junctions.

Attachments:

File	Description	File size	Last modified
284-TR-v01_Bramley_Transport_assessment.pdf		600 kB	Fri, 14 Oct 2016 15:06:29