Highways Agency

• A500 basford hough shavington bypass
• Recent Activities
• Recent Activities
• Executive summary
• 1. introduction
• 2. data collected
• 3. summary of results
• 4. conclusion

A500 Basford, Hough, Shavington Bypass

3. Summary of Results

AUTOMATIC TRAFFIC COUNTS (ATC)

1. Figure 3.1 provides a summary of the 'Before' and 'After' ATC information using five day 24 hour average two-way traffic volumes.

Figure 3.1 - Summary of ATC data

2. The main points to note following scheme opening are:
   • In May 2003, around 14,600 vehicles were recorded using the western end of the new road on an average weekday, with nearly 17,000 vehicles at the eastern end; and
   • Following opening, traffic volumes of 5,500 per day were observed on the old trunk road between Shavington and Hough, compared with 15,900 vehicles before opening. This represents a reduction of some 10,400 vehicles (65%) passing through the two villages.

   At other locations on the old A500 the pattern is similar:

   • In Shavington itself there is a 64% reduction in traffic;
   • Further east near Weston, the A500 is carrying 63% less traffic than before the opening of the bypass; and
   • Traffic levels on the section of the A500 which forms the Nantwich ring road appear unchanged.
3. 'Before' and 'After' traffic counts have also been undertaken on parallel roads to the A500 in order to understand re-routing of traffic in the area. The main points to note from these count sites are:
   • There has been a very small decrease in traffic passing through Crewe in the east - west direction. This can be seen from the decrease in vehicles per day (vpd) passing the site near Crewe rail station, from 28,800 vpd to 28,100 vpd, a change of approximately 2%;
   • Before and after traffic counts were undertaken on two of Nantwich's radial routes - the A534 Crewe Road, and Newcastle Road. Traffic on the Nantwich section of the A534 is unchanged. However, there has been a considerable increase in traffic on the Newcastle Road, which leads from the centre of Nantwich and the new A5301 link road to the west end of the new road where traffic volumes increased by nearly 19% from 11,000 vpd;
   • The traffic counts on the minor roads which cross the new bypass also showed some changes. Rope Lane (the westernmost of the two minor roads) showed a decrease in traffic of 900 vpd (17%). Crewe Road, further east, had two count locations, one north and one south of the intermediate access to the bypass. South of the bypass there was a small decrease in traffic, from 8600 vpd to 8400 vpd, which is only a difference of 2%. North of the bypass there was an increase of 600 vpd, which is about 7%; and
   • Junction 16 is the nearest junction of the M6. Just north of this junction there is a 1.5% increase in traffic (from 126,300 vpd to 128,200 vpd) after the new A500 scheme opened.

JOURNEY TIMES

4. A summary of the journey times from the 'Before' scheme opening and 'After scheme opening is shown in Tables 3.1 to 3.4.

Table 3.1 - Journey Times for New Route

Table 3.2 - Journey Times for Northern Route

Table 3.3 - Journey Times for Southern Route

Table 3.4 - Journey Times for Cross Route

5. The first table clearly shows that significant time savings are being observed in the A500 corridor, in both directions through Shavington and Hough over the length of the new bypass, (ie. between the roundabouts at either extent of the scheme). These savings are as high as 4 minutes in the westbound direction, which shows a 40% time saving compared to the 'Before' scheme scenario. Savings vary from 6 to 18% of the original journey time.
6. The reduction in traffic volumes on the old A500 means that the existing traffic travels quicker and journey times of two minutes are shown for vehicles that remain on the old A500.
7. The northern route, through Crewe itself, shows a time saving of up to 12 minutes eastbound in the morning peak and 8 minutes westbound in the evening peak. However, in the same direction in the evening peak there is actually an increased journey time of 3 minutes, from 20 minutes to 23 minutes. The largest time savings are eastbound in the morning peak and westbound in the evening peak.
8. On further investigation, the journey time savings eastbound in the morning peak and westbound in the evening peak are almost entirely on the section of the route east of Crewe itself. There is actually an increase in journey time through the town section eastbound in the morning peak but this is hidden by the larger decrease in journey time on the easternmost section. The location of the reduction is in agreement with the very modest decrease in traffic at the ATC site near Crewe station - such a small decrease in traffic would not be expected to cause a large improvement in journey time. It does imply that the A5020 near Weston has seen a considerable decrease in traffic in this period.
9. The B5071 route which crosses the new bypass shows journey time savings of nearly 4 minutes northbound in the PM peak (35% of original journey time) and 2 minutes southbound in the inter peak period (24% of original journey time). The other times and directions show a marginal effect.
10. Overall both the old and new A500 roads have journey time savings under the new scheme. However it can be seen that the route through Crewe and the north / south route which crosses the new road both have time savings for some times / directions and not for others. This can be seen more clearly in Figure 3.2 below.

Figure 3.2 - Journey Time Savings

JOURNEY SPEEDS

Table 3.5 - Comparison of Journey Speeds (KPH)

11. Table 3.5 compares journey speeds before and after the Bypass opening during AM, Inter-peak, and PM peak periods. Average speeds on the old A500 have increased by around 10kph from 50 to 60kph. These increases in speed clearly reflect the removal of traffic from this route after the opening of the new bypass. The new A500 shows eastbound journey speeds are consistently 65-70 kph but westbound AM peak shows only 55kph, suggesting perhaps some junction delay at the western end of the bypass.
12. The scheme clearly allows traffic to flow more freely during these periods. The average traffic speed on the new A500 is 16 kph faster than the old A500 travelling Eastbound, and 12 kph faster travelling Westbound before the scheme opened.
13. Table 3.6 below shows the variation in journey times on the B5071 from the shortest observed time and the longest observed time, suggesting that the scheme has been successful in reducing variation in journey times so that journey times are more reliable.

Table 3.6 - Variation in Journey Times on Cross Route

Despite the wide variation, the opening of the new route appears not to have had a detrimental effect on the B5071 between Shavington village and Crewe.

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

TRAFFIC COUNTS

14. The main points to note from the results of the traffic counts are:
    • In the month of June a weekday average of 14,600 vpd used the new bypass. Approximately 10,400 vehicles previously used the former A500 through the bypassed villages, meaning that just over 70% of the traffic on the new bypass has been successfully removed from the road through Shavington and Hough. It is possible that there are some new trips within this traffic, but it appears that the remainder of the traffic on the new bypass has diverted from other routes such as that through Crewe town centre (900 vehicles), Rope Lane through Nantwich (900 vehicles) and some (2,400 vehicles) from other corridors. This traffic from other corridors can be seen in the extra traffic on the A500 between the new scheme and the M6 and on Newcastle Road to the west of the scheme.
    • There has been a consistent percentage reduction of vehicles (65%) along the whole length of the A500.
    • The small decrease (from 28,800 vpd to 28,100 vpd, a 2% reduction) in traffic passing through Crewe in the east - west direction can not be considered as a direct effect of the new scheme. This traffic's flow variation may be within the normal variation of traffic flows over two time periods.
    • There has been a considerable increase in traffic on Newcastle Road, which leads from the centre of Nantwich to the west end of the new road. This increase is about 30%, or 3,100 vehicles. These vehicles have diverted on to the new road from other corridors accessing the bypass through the eastern side of Nantwich.
    • These results can be explained by the opening of a new link road from the south end of the Nantwich bypass to the Newcastle Road. This road is used to link traffic from Nantwich itself and the west and south of the town to the new bypass.
    • The effect of Phase 2 of the Crewe Green Link Road, which is not yet open, will be examined in the 5 Year after report on this scheme. This road is planned to serve developments in and around Weston, and may carry considerable volumes of traffic.
    • For the period 9th June to 11th July the eastern end of the bypass carried 16,800 vpd, 2,000 more than other sections of the new scheme, central or western.
    • The traffic counts on the minor roads which cross the new bypass also showed some variations. Rope Lane (the westernmost of the two minor roads) showed a decrease in traffic of 900 vehicles or 17% (from 5,400 to 4,500 vpd). This road has no access to the new bypass and it seems likely that these 900 vehicles have diverted to other routes in order to be able to use at least part of the new road.
    • North of the bypass on Crewe Road, Shavington there was an increase of 600 vehicles (about 7%), but as this road forms an important link between Crewe and the Bypass it is not surprising that an increase in traffic is being shown.
    • North of junction 16 (the nearest junction of the M6) the M6 shows a 1.5% increase in traffic (from 126,300 to 128,200 vpd) after the new bypass was opened. This sort of increase is within the normal fluctuations of traffic variation which suggests that there has been an unproven level of distribution in the area. Traffic volume increases on the A500 west of Junction 16 do show however an increase of around 3,000 vehicles per day which goes some way to explaining the increases of traffic on the M6 itself.