“Thanks for the feedback.
Yes I have placed a lot of comments about the solution I offer. There is a plain and simple reason for this but before I get into it let me state that I realise that my infrastructure will not work in every situation, but that will depend on how long commuters want to put up with a traffic system that doesn¿t work. There are many roads in town centres that are too narrow and would not benefit from my designs. But having said that there are many roads that will and in particular the major ones that feed off and into the minor ones.
You see I have approached this from the viewpoint that a road should run like a river, it never stops but infinitely adjusts to circumstances. Yes I know that rivers flood but this is compensated in a roadway by the fact that we can adjust the flow speed of vehicles. Not fixed speed limits. When I started driving there weren¿t top speed limits and I noticed the slowing and extended time taken to do trips when they were introduced.
Let me give you background, I lived and worked in England for half my life before moving to Australia and I¿m pushing 61 next month.
Apart from the last 5 years in Trowbridge I lived most of it in Basingstoke, now there¿s a town that has taken some changes. But traffic flow hasn¿t improved.
I have bicycled, motorcycled and driven around England both for work and pleasure. Hitched across and around Europe alone at 21 and yes I got into Italy. Did Paris then and did it again a few years ago. In those days there were just as many jams and gridlock in the major cities as there are today. Done a fair bit over here in major cities as well as Singapore and Hong Kong.
The reasons then are the same as today it¿s just that today there are more vehicles so the ripple effect affects more people.
Take a look at today¿s intersection designs and I can show that every one will slow traffic flow, traffic lights just stop it.

The Turnabout will slow you as you enter it, that¿s deliberate, but because you take turns you never stop.
With the upgraded Turnabout the flow rate of vehicles is faster.
With a high speed T you don¿t even have to slow down and because it is in single lane format it can fit dimensionally into many existing roads intersections. It¿s not shown.
The High Speed crossroad has also has no speed restraint and along with the T they have no top speed limit for vehicles using them.
The spaghetti one commented on is an exercise to prove the concept.
Through traffic on the freeway never slows or stops
Exiting left and right you never slow or stop.
This can be duplicated, another level to allow entering right turn traffic too the freeway to do the same, but rather than make it look more complicated it has been left out.
Left turns are still available to join the freeway.
It leaves one problem how to cross the freeway. This is where the Turnabout comes in as it is expected that it would serve local traffic only. It also allows all right turns.
This means that if speed limits are removed drivers adjust infinitely just like a river.

There are only a few places in cities around the globe where this could possibly be considered but it may remove the charm that these locations have. After all how many places have eight roads converging in a built up area. The most that I have found, Paris where if I am not mistaken there are 13 roads joining but having been through it myself I think you need to be a Parisian to do it. Well maybe you need to spend time there before you attempt it.

That leaves the reason why I place comments.
There are two ways to get things done. Have an IN with the decision makers, government. That¿s called sucking up.
Or have public opinion force government to make decisions.
Have you ever tried to get a response from politicians that know nothing and pass the buck to departments that defend their way of work even though it doesn¿t work?
My correspondence is very thin on the rep”

“Another point to note on this topic......

The recent opening of Cabot Circus was announced along the lines of 'helping to promote Bristol as the capital of the South West, bringing in visitors from miles around to save them travelling to London for their shopping'.

Great story at the time perhaps, but not exactly a fantastic idea for those of us who actually live in Bristol and thanks to the opening of this new 'tourist attraction' as it was called, our city's already horrendously overcrowded road system is made worse tenfold!

As others have mentioned, i'm quite sure that the congestion charge would soon put off both locals and visitors from afar, thus condemning Cabot Circus, to the benefit once again of Cribbs Causeway!

Also, how far and wide is this congestion charge to spread? Speaking as someone who tries - in vain at times - to use public transport, I seem to spend more time stuck on the out of centre roads, namely Fishponds Road, Muller Road, Southmead Road, Gloucester Road, and many many others as i'm sure all Bristolians will have experienced for themselves.

Once again, this problem is down to lack of any form of efficient and SAFE public transport. Not all of us can get on bikes, so there needs to be an alternative.

It just seems such a shame that with all the money spent on Cabot Circus and the complete re-structuring of the road system in that area, that virtually NO attempt was made to incorporate any public transit system. It's ok to say this was yet another missed opportunity, but how many more like that are going to pass us by?!

Oh, and Mr Henry, I do hope that you are able to get in around the city centre every day more successfully than the rest of us trying to get to our places of work - whether in the centre of Bristol or anywhere else in the region. If so, then you must know something the rest of us don't!”

“Sorry for the bad spelling. Should check before submitting.”

“Hi Jozef,

Thank I'd imagine your model will work very well in macros terms but in Bristol right now we need to think in micros strategies as there's four other council boundaries crossing transparently with Bristol and between them the councils produce lots of paperwork for each other and hense it takes years to get past each phase.
As a quick remedy I think major road ways should have a reversible traffic display system so all existing raods are turned in to one way systems. For example between 07.00 - 09.30 Gloucester Road, Wells Road, Kingswood Road, Fishponds Road etc all flow in to central Bristol whilst smaller roads flow out normally (which are pretty much dead anyway) and a reverse effect between 15.00 - 19.00. It will cause issues for a lot of people in the short term but after a few months Bristol will move five times quaicker and we will have a cicular model with very little expense. It's all about restructuring excisting raods for the better good and with this traffic lights can be taken out of a lot of road ways.

For people living in these areas they will simply join the flow one way until the first opportunities to turn left or right, then they'll flow to their destination.
Food for thought.”

“Jozef,

I admire your determination to spread the word of your Liquid Flow Traffic system..

It seems the first few pages of a google search show that you've placed comments like this on a massive amount of traffic congestion news stories on websites around the world.

The trouble with liquid flow systems, or indeed the vast majority of attempts by architects and engineers to work as social engineers, is that the big random factor always causes problems: people.

I'd recomend a few days driving in Sicily or much of mainland italy - traffic flows very freely without the massive junctions that you show as needed for the liquid flow solution.

After taking a look at your proposed intersections (love the bottom right one on the interchange models, very spaggetti junction) I wonder how you'd propose getting them built in any city without needing the city in question to be utterly leveled and rebuilt as a concrete and asphalt multilevel monument to the motorcar?”

“"No-one wants to volunteer for congestion-charges, but they have now been proved to work in London¿
I beg to differ. There is no proof. All it has done is reduce the number of vehicles but congestion and travel times have not changed. Nor have the jams and gridlock.

"This is a crucial issue for Bristol, which has also declared the aim of having a congestion charge and has secured Government funding for researching the idea.¿
Another waste of taxpayer¿s money from a government that offers no solutions just an added financial burden to road users that ask where does my rego and fuel taxes go? Yet they never get a response.
The congestion tax is clutching at straws in the mistaken belief that reducing the number of vehicles reduces the congestion. It has not solved London¿s problems.
It prices out the lowest paid that pay proportionally more of their income on fuel and taxes.

Bristol like any city is besieged by roads infrastructure that has never and will never resolve the congestion.
It¿s been many years since I last drove around Bristol, living in Trowbridge at the time I was looking for a family grave.
Since then I¿m sure it¿s had many changes.
I will make an assumption, always a dangerous thing to do, that the city is serviced by traffic lights possibly some roundabouts and probably with the typical Diamond intersections when joining the major freeways and highways. It may even have some Four Level Diamond intersections.
Also presumably once peak traffic flow has passed and the vehicles are parked there is sufficient space for them to do so.
It is during the peak period that the jams gridlock and congestion occur as workers all hit the road at the same time to get to and from work.
Now presumably during the quietest time of the day traffic will flow reasonably well.
This is because the intersection designs of the last 140 years only work in light traffic flows.
Every one and I mean every one of these either stops or slow traffic flow. Traffic lights the oldest just stop traffic flow and the others including roundabouts only work reasonably in light traffic. The typical Diamond intersection makes left and right turning vehicles share the same roadway exiting the freeway but you come to a dead stop at the traffic lights and usually if turning right you have to stop again before you continue the drive.
When you load the system with vehicles as more and more are added the whole system grinds along at the speed of the slowest intersections flow rate. That of traffic lights.
There are no effective intelligent transport solutions as that is rhetoric. They will not work on an infrastructure that is faulty. Phasing lights only solves a small component of the problem as someone¿s stopped
So if you had intersection infrastructure that allowed all motorists to enter and exit them in peak traffic without stopping then you will drive across town in peak traffic faster safer without ever stopping at a single intersection.
Yes I know the argument that it would be expensive to do. But against it there is a single choice, put up with infrastructure that will never resolve the problem, against infrastructure that will get you home in less time, save money, reduce pollution and allow the economy that is loosing billions to recover. You just have to change the old for something new.
Its 21st Century technology and it works all the time.
Look at it this way if you could wave a magic wand and start again which system would you want. One that will never work or one that does. You decide.
I'm 'Jozef Goj' the inventor and designer of 'Liquid Flow Traffic' intersections. Search me and make up your own mind.”

“Dave Gould, Bristol.

maybe before spending half a billion pounds on a world class shopping centre, encouraging people to drive as much as catch the bus, this silly idea of a charge should be thrown out today. Bristol central charge now then Cribbs causeway will grow and Cabot Circus etc will die over night. It's not even worth spending any more time on. Look for other ideas.

Alex, good to hear from you.
Yes it's shocking people still drive in central London and when I found out why it was humourous. Businesses i.e. agents, consultants and others take their cars to work and pay the congestion charge, they then charge the client this fee but not just one client but every client they see on this day. So some are actually making up to £100 profit every day from the congestion charge. This is another reason why it's a stupid idea, it simply make the rich richer and poor poorer and more depressed.”

“Most of you are missing the point, much like the article.

Here is the problem:

There isn't and will never again be enough road. So who should be allowed on it?

Ambulances and buses, naturally. But who else?

At the moment it's those most willing/needing to put up with the congestion.

The congestion charge will allow on the road those most willing/able to pay an arbitrary charge.

Perhaps a fairer solution is allowing everyone to drive on alternate days (depending on their license plate).”

“Carrot before stick.

If you want to reduce traffic congestion then make the alternatives to the car attractive and affordable first - efficient and affordable public transport; proper cycling facilities; traffic-free pedestrian areas... Then do the congestion charge if you must.

OK, there will always be those who are wedded, or welded, to their tin gods, but there must be far more people who would be delighted to leave their cars at home for many of their trips if there was a better way to travel, especially for local, urban trips. A congestion charge on its own first would probably achieve very little on its own.”

“people from south glos, ie yate could use a park & ride, if it had been built insted of placing council offices on it!!!!!!!”