Highways Agency

• A650 Bingley Traffic Impact Study
• Executive Summary
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Data Collected
• 3. Summary of Results
• 4. Local Impacts
• 5. Conclusions

5. Conclusions

5.1 The traffic data as part of this Traffic Impact Study demonstrates that the new A650 Bingley Relief Road, which opened on 22nd December 2003, has been successful in routeing traffic away from the road through Bingley town centre. The main conclusions are:

• The new A650 Bingley Relief Road was used by about 28,000 vehicles per average weekday (vpd), in April 2004;
• Weekday traffic volumes through the town centre have reduced from 28,500 vpd to 14,400 vpd, an approximate reduction of 49%;
• The Average Weekday Traffic (AWT) carried by Bingley Main Street and Bingley Relief Road combined, in April 2004, was 42,000 vpd, an increase of 47% since June 2003, indicating that there has been a transfer of traffic into the A650 corridor;
• All four main screenlines assessed show an increase in traffic in the A650 corridor, suggesting that longer-distance traffic has been diverted onto the A650 from a range of routes, and the increase is highest close to Bingley; suggesting that rat-running in the town will have reduced as traffic re-routes onto the A650 but also that there may be additional traffic movements local to Bingley generated by the freeing up of Main Street and progress on local housing developments;
• Surveys of local roads in and near Bingley also suggest that some of the traffic diverted onto the Relief Road will be from roads previously used as rat runs but some local routes now carry more traffic;
• Average journey time savings of up to 12 minutes have been achieved in the AM and PM peak periods between Thwaites and Saltaire following the opening of the A650 Bingley Relief Road;
• Due to the reduction in traffic flows on the old A650, journey times have improved through the town, and show up to 9 minute time savings compared to June 2003;
• It is likely that the June 2003 journey times were affected by road works, and so 1999 journey times, undertaken by CBMDC, have also been used for the 'Before' situation. They show that journey time savings of up to 10 minutes have been achieved in the peak periods, and 4 - 5 minutes in the inter peaks;
• Journey times to the east and south of Bingley have increased in all time periods; and
• The speeds on the new A650 Bingley Relief Road are consistent across all time periods, indicating that journey time reliability has improved.

5.2 The 'One Year After' surveys for this scheme's Post Opening Project Evaluation will be undertaken in Spring 2005, where the traffic count and journey time surveys will be repeated, and the evaluation will be widened to include other issues such as quantifying the initial accident savings due to the new Relief Road.