M60JETTS: The Update

North West Regional Assembly Regional Transport Group

29^th November 2006

M60 JETTS (JUNCTION 18 TO 12 TRANSPORT STUDY)

TARGETED PROGRAMME OF IMPROVEMENTS PRE ENTRY PREPARATION

Background Information

With an average weekday traffic flow in excess of 185,000 vpd, including over 25,000 heavy goods vehicles, the M60 between Junctions 12 and 13 at Worsley is the most heavily trafficked section of motorway in the North West and one of the busiest in the UK.  Over 150,000 vpd use the route between Junctions 15 (the M61 Interchange) and 18, including around 25,000 heavy goods vehicles. 

The whole length is now under considerable stress and experiences significant congestion during peak periods which are extending in duration; congestion can also occur outside of peak periods.  Close spacing of junctions combined with the large volume of traffic using the motorway for short distances results in a considerable amount of lane changing, often causing significant disruption to traffic flow. Delays arise particularly between Junctions 12 and 13 and on the approaches to Junction 15, where morning peak period congestion on the anti-clockwise carriageway of the M60 results in long queues of standing traffic on the southbound carriageway of the M61. 

Congestion is also having an impact on the local road network as traffic is unable to access the motorway.  This has an adverse effect on pedestrians, cyclists, local residents and buses passing through the motorway junctions.  Some sections of the M60 between Junctions 12 and 18 also have a poor safety record compared with motorways nationally. 

Lane provision is now a combination of two, three and four lanes of standard and sub-standard width.  New direction signs, MIDAS (Motorway Incident Detection and Automatic Signalling) and electronic variable message signs have been put in place as part of the M60 Roadside Driver Information System.

The Highways Agency’s Preferred Option

The initial assessment of how to achieve segregation using Active Traffic Management considered use of the hard shoulder as an extra traffic lane during peak periods. The analysis has indicated that the traffic profile on the M60 would require use of the hard shoulder throughout much of the day.  Assessment of achieving segregation of M62 traffic from M60 traffic has indicated possible problems, including enforcement and the potential effects of differential speed limits.

The Highways Agency is now proposing that five traffic lanes be provided between Junctions 12 and 18 in each direction, apart from between Junctions 14 and 15, together with various elements from the Active Traffic Management toolkit, including variable speed limits and access control.  The intention is to accommodate the five lanes within a similar paved width to the existing four lane motorway by reducing the widths of individual lanes.  The hard shoulder would also disappear, to be replaced by a 1 metre hard strip and 1.6 metre hard verge; this is likely to be of concern to the emergency services.

The proposed scheme includes a bypass of Junction 12 for M62 traffic. Any scheme will be funded from the Highways Agency’s national allocation, not the Regional Funding Allocation, although as a result of existing commitments, work on the scheme would not start until 2014/15.  The addition of a fourth lane anti-clockwise between Junctions 15 and 13 as recommended by the JETTS Study has also been assessed, although its feasibility is being reviewed in relation to delivery of the wider scheme.  The preferred option is for the additional lane to extend from Junction 15 to Junction 12.

A key element of the Multi-Modal Study strategy is demand management and some form of road user charging would be essential to manage demand sufficiently so as to reduce congestion on the M60 in the long term.

The Greater Manchester authorities have been successful in attracting ‘pump priming’ resources from the Government’s Transport Innovation Fund to develop packages of schemes that combine ‘hard’ demand management measures such as road pricing with better public transport.  This will assist delivery of the Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Strategy (GMITS), and work is underway to develop a demand management toolkit involving definition of the circumstances in which increasingly harder-edged measures will need to be deployed to achieve the behavioural change necessary to support sustainable economic growth. 

In November 2006, the Secretary of State announced that Greater Manchester had been successful in the second TIF ‘pump priming’ round.  A full TIF bid will now be submitted to the Department for Transport in July 2007.

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