The more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed a few overnight – temporary – additions to our bridges.
These are automatic traffic counters and they have been installed to ensure we have as much information as possible about traffic using the bridges before the Rochester Bridge Refurbishment Project begins in 2019.
Comprising pneumatic tubes placed across the carriageway and survey cameras mounted on lamp columns, the equipment was installed by our traffic survey contractor Traffic Data Centre, as agreed by Bridge Engineer Arcadis. The survey is paid for by the Rochester Bridge Trust and the installation was done out of hours to minimise disruption to the travelling public.
The survey equipment will be in place for approximately two weeks – one week while the Medway Tunnel is open, and one while it is closed – and it will provide us with traffic counts, turning movements and queue lengths.
All of this is valuable information when it comes to putting together the refurbishment programme as it will help to determine the impact of any traffic management used during the works.