Rush hour alerts a hit with drivers

Speed of traffic. Photo / Doug Sherring

Auckland's latest gadgets to ease motorway congestion are proving remarkably accurate - and a hit with motorists.

Electronic signs on motorway feeder roads let drivers know how long their journey will take and there will be 250 signs costing $3 million when the project is completed by the end of the year.

The Herald on Sunday put the signs' predictions to the test to see how close they were to actual travelling times.

Times update automatically as traffic conditions change from information gathered from detectors on motorways and arterial roads which measure traffic volumes, density and speeds. The margin of error is four minutes.

A journey from Gillies Ave on-ramp to Nelson St on Wednesday was signalled to take seven minutes - it took six.

A trip from the Ellerslie on-ramp to Nelson St signalled to take 26 minutes at 5.10pm took 23 minutes despite traffic moving at a crawl.

And, the previous Thursday, it took 10 minutes to get from Greenlane to Nelson St in rush hour - five minutes less than the signs said it would take. A trip from Gillies Ave to Great North Rd the following morning took nine minutes instead of the signalled 10. Two trips from Great North Rd to Nelson St took 15 minutes, five more than the sign predicted.

The next series of signs has started operating at spaghetti junction for southbound drivers at Hobson St, Symonds St and Grafton Gully as well as for people driving north and west at Gillies Ave and Newton Rd.

Student Gavin Irving uses the Great North Rd on-ramp on most days to take the Northwestern Motorway into the city.

While he finds the signs interesting, he doesn't alter his route because of what they tell him.

"It's really just information. The problem is, what can you do? If you see that it's busy it's not as if you can go and jump on a different route."

But he was impressed with the signs' accuracy. "It's actually being very consistent."

However, engineer Antony Wraight said the Greenlane sign was too close to the on-ramp. "It's a good idea, but probably the position is a bit pointless."