Forum on Red Routes

Phased traffic lights on Red Routes – higher traffic quality, lower emissions?

The initial mission of the Red Routes Forum was to assess “suitable measures for long-term, sustainable management of road traffic in the arterial road network“. In the future, sufficient traffic quality with a homogeneous flow of traffic will not only ensure that the concentration of this traffic is in line with urban structures but it will also contribute to a reduction in local emissions. The approaches developed for assessing traffic quality will be revised.

Results and Recommendations (as of Inzell VIII, 2009): Discontinuing the Forum

The strategy group drew up a summary containing Red Route's updated objectives and  further statements on an integrated analysis of efficiency and an assessment of „traffic quality“ as a parameter introduced in the traffic development plan. For the latter, a method has been developed on behalf of the Red Routes Forum allowing for an evaluation of the average cruising speed and of the reliability of attaining this speed. This method takes traffic data collected via a license plate recognition system into account and was implemented successfully in the City of Munich. The results were implemented in a traffic model and thus allowed for analyses of and prognoses for traffic quality in the road network context. 

During the seventh plenary workshop in Garching in 2007, the Forum members were asked to look into the possibility of extending the Red Routes network to the environs. It turned out that due to the different responsibilities in the Red Routes network a cooperation of all players involved, like in the Forum, was indispensable at the local level. In the environs of the City of Munich, Red Routes are normally federal or state-owned roads that the Highest Construction Authority and the corresponding municipalities are co-responsible for. Thus, broadening the Red Routes initiative to the Munich environs doesn't seem to be necessary. 

The Forum's last task, the implementation of traffic expert Prof. Erke's signposting plan for cycle paths which the City Council had voted for in December 2006 has been almost completely (95%) fulfilled. By the beginning of the 2010 cycling season, the remaining gaps were to be closed. Thus the Forum's mission to implement the signposting plan for cycle paths has been accomplished.