Busway driver guilty of speeding

Those with a long memory may recall an accident on the Busway in February 2016 (and if you don't, here's a link to our blogpost). The driver concerned was recently given a 12-week suspended prison sentence for speeding at the time of the crash. According to a Cambridge News report the bus was travelling at 53mph in a 30mph zone at the time of the accident, whilst the driver was reading a time duty card.

You can read the full Cambridge News report here.

Speed monitoring happens - but only in Trumpington

This is a follow-up to a January 4 post. I said at the end of that post: "I suspect Cllr O'Connell will be persisting with her questions." And that turned out to be an accurate assumption, because a few days later Cllr O'Connell asked the County Council to undertake an internal review of its handling of her original FoI request.


Well, the results of that review have now been posted - and have already been covered in the local media (I saw a piece on the late-evening Look East yesterday).


Two main points gave rise to Cllr O'Connell's request.


1. Non-disclosure of details relating to the portable camera. It turns out the reason for any non-disclosure is that the portable camera "has not yet been utilised". Readers with long memories - an interest in the Busway is assumed, of course! - will recall that the County Council acquired a speed gun (or "portable camera")  back in August, at a reported cost of £17,000 (covered in a post of 12 September). That's the one that hasn't been used since. (Although I think it was unpacked so that it could be demonstrated to the BBC, before being put back.)


2. Non-disclosure of data [about speeds recorded]. This relates to the information recorded from fixed cameras on the Trumpington stretch of the Busway. The County Council has now released this information.


The full exchange on this FoI request, including the records of speeds logged by the cameras, is at this URL.


Now, according to a BBC News report, "The council said the portable camera had not been needed because it had no evidence of speeding since fixed cameras were put on parts of the route." But this ignores the other places on the Busway where speed limits are applied and where there are no fixed cameras. And the whole Busway is subject to a maximum line speed, which means that the use of a portable device would be justified on any guided section (although it's clearly impossible to exceed the maximum speed in a number of places, even if one were to try).

The County Council spokesman also came out with this rather puzzling statement: "Since cameras were installed along the Trumpington route, we haven't recorded any evidence of speeding therefore the portable camera hasn't been needed." I've had more success trying to make sense of the relationship between the various films in the Star Wars franchise than I had with that! Apparently, if drivers observe the limit in the Trumpington section that means they're never going to speed anywhere else. Forgive me if I need to go and lie down whilst I work out the logic behind that.

Speed monitoring - FoI request reveals all (or not much?)

There have been a number of posts on this blog in recent months cncerning traffic speeds on the Busway (too many for me to bother to post all the links here). And here's another one!

Cllr Zoe O'Connell - picking up on earlier developments regarding the monitoring of speed along the Busway - recently submitted an FoI request to Cambridgeshire County Council. She asked:

Please can you provide any records of speed monitoring carried out on the Guided Busway by the county council using the speed monitoring device purchased in August or September of this year.
If possible, please can you include:
1) The date, time and location of any monitoring activities
2) The speed limit at that location
3) The speeds of any vehicles obtained.
4) Any follow up action by the council.

Now,  the request is slightly ambiguous because it relies on her understanding of the "speed monitoring device" being the same as the County Council's. (For what it's worth, I thought she was referring to a portable device covered in my December 5 blog post.)

The County's response has now been posted. It's brief, and doesn't reveal very much!

We have a portable camera we use to monitor speed on the Guided Busway. The only fixed camera we have at present is along the Trumpington single track section. The monitoring here is constant between 05:00 and 21:00 Monday to Saturday (whilst buses are running)

We capture anything that travels over 20 mph (to rule out cyclists etc).

Details of any bus travelling over 33 mph (limit plus 10%) will be sent to the relevant bus operator. The first block of information will be sent during January 2018. The Speed indicator device has been in place since November and during this time the device has been tested and calibrated to provide us with the accurate data that we require.

The County's response fails to provide any information at all about the use to which the portable camera has been put (why? Isn't that part of the point of the original FoI request?). And the fixed camera is too new for there to be any results to report.

So we're not much the wiser at this point!

I suspect Cllr O'Connell will be persisting with her questions.

If you want to look at the full exchange, follow this link.

Speed monitoring - again

Cast your mind back to the August 4 post about speed monitoring. From that, we learned that the County Council carries out speed checks and passes the results on to the operators. Subsequently, as reported on August 18, it was revealed that the communication is entirely verbal, and that no written record of what's reported to the operators is kept.

Now, in its initial statement, the Council noted that
"The current devices we use do not have the ability to record the data, it has been primarily a monitoring exercise. We are looking into expanding our monitoring capability which will lean more towards enforcement and the different types of speed recording devices, which will log data, in future."

I've been informed that the BBC ran an item last week, both on Look East and on the radio, about a new laser speed gun that the County Council has just acquired. My correspondent notes that it's reported to have cost £17,000. But at least this one will, apparently, keep a record of the results. On Look East's late programme there was the briefest of clips of it in use on the busway. Unfortunately, the BBC iPlayer only has the previous day's Look East available for catch-up viewing, so I'm totally dependent on others for providing this information. Thanks!

Problem solved, perhaps?

 

Speed-related correspondence - FoI request

It was only a matter of time before the recent batch of Freedom of Information requests spawned some follow-ups. There have been two in the past week or so, both submitted by Cllr Zoe O'Connell. In no particular order...

One of them requested from Cambridgeshire County Council "copies of any 'information passed on to bus operators' relating to speed checks on the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, as referred to in your response to FOI request 8012" (covered by this blog in a posting dated 4 August).

 The County Council responded, saying that is "does not hold a record of this information. The reason there is no correspondence is because the information was passed on verbally to the relevant operator control rooms. The conversations were not recorded so no record is held of the times / dates or content of the telephone information passed to either operators in regard to speed checks."

So who knows what was said to whom, or when, or how frequently. Or anything, really...

Here's a link to the full FoI request:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/correspondence_with_bus_companie

Busway speed monitoring - FoI request

Information of the second of the four recent Freedom of Information requests that I introduced in my 23 July posting.

This one was submitted by Zoe O'Connell, one of Trumpington ward's City Councillors. In essence, Cllr O'Connell asked the County Council:

Please can you provide policies for and records of any monitoring of the speed of buses using the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway carried out by or on behalf of the council.

There are two aspects to the County Council's response. The lengthier part extracts all of the speed-related clauses in the Bus Operations Handbook for Drivers. Most of this information has been in the public domain at some point in the past. The first part of the Council's response is, I suspect, less well-known. Here it is in full:

Cambridgeshire County Council carries out speed checks along the Guided Busway and this information is passed onto the bus operators. The current devices we use do not have the ability to record the data, it has been primarily a monitoring exercise. We are looking into expanding our monitoring capability which will lean more towards enforcement and the different types of speed recording devices, which will log data, in future.

Here's a link to the FoI request, including the County Council's response:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/speed_monitoring_on_the_guided_b

The Cambridge News has this morning published a story based on this FoI request. Here's the link to that Cambridge News item:
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/guided-busway-drivers-face-speeding-13427802

Two further FoI requests await responses - both are due in the next few days. 

Speeding?

According to a report on the BBC website Cambridge City Councillor Zoe O'Connell (Trumpington, Liberal Democrat) has purchased a speed gun, which she has used to demonstrate that some buses are exceeding a 15mph speed limit in the vicinity of Cambridge Railway Station.

From the accompanying video report, it seems that the speed gun was used in the area just south of the Hills Road bridge (close to the site of last week's accident, therefore). If memory serves, this is not a public highway, so breaking the speed limit here would not be a regular traffic offence. Rather, the limit was applied by the County Council to a busway section operating on County Council land, and as such any speeding - if proven - would be a matter between the operator and the County Council (and presumably covered by the operating manual that controls so much of what happens on the Busway). If anyone has more definite information on the legal situation, please share it!

Accident south of Cambridge railway station

A Whippet single decker, operating the University's "Universal" contract, was involved in an accident earlier this afternoon on the Trumpington stretch of Busway, just after the entrance to the guided section south of Cambridge railway station. Reports are still coming in - you might want to follow this Cambridge News link for more information (and for more up-to-date information). It seems no other vehicle was involved.

Update 22:15, 21 June
Latest information from Whippet is that the driver swerved to avoid two cyclists. What they were doing in a location that such action was required is not immediately clear from reports.

Update, 11 July
The BBC reports that the Whippet driver involved in this incident has been sacked for speeding. The report doesn't indicate whether speeding was the sole cause of the accident. Follow this link for more information:

Traffic speeds at Busway/A1096 crossing in St Ives

This week's Hunts Post (25 February, page 15) reveals the effect that the opening of the busway has had on traffic speeds on Harrison Way (the A1096) which links St Ives with the A14. The article is based pm department of Transport figures which show that speed on the A1096 has fallen by 5.8mph since July 2007. Not all the falls in speed can be attributed to the busway, however.

An 'all time low' was reached in January 2013, but since the traffic lights were re-sequenced to prevent pedestrians and cyclists from triggering the lights so frequently, speeds have started to rise again.

To read the article, visit the Hunts Post here.

The article does not, however, deal with other causes of delay on the A1096 such as closure of the A1123 at Earith Bridge when the river is high and St Ives becomes gridlocked. When are politicians going to vote money to raise the A1123 onto stilts at Earith to prevent these disruptive closures?

Nor does the article touch on the innumerable delays caused to bus passengers by  congestion in the narrow streets of St Ives, or in central Cambridge.