[Closure] Brynglas Tunnel, Newport, Wales

Map Editors Community United Kingdom UK Editor Requests
1

My Level: 1
Area Manager: No

Would a level 5 or above please add this closure. Thanks, Andrew (a2bpdq)

Location: M4 Brynglas Tunnel (Eastbound Only), Newport, Wales Permalink
Reason: Tunnel Refurbishment
Start: 07 October, 2017 19:00
End: 09 October, 2017 06:00
Sources: Traffic Wales, WME Comment TechHitch(1) 29 September 2017 Permalink, gowerewolf(0) App Road Closure Report Permalink

Note: There are other closures on that web page that could be added too, but the one requested is live.

2

OK, that’s (probably) over 100 closures added to the Brynglas Tunnels. :mrgreen:

I’ve added all the “Tunnel Refurbishment” closures listed. There are some “Routing maintenance” closures listed but they’re all next year and noted as “subject to change”. Probably best to ping me again or raise a fresh request a bit closer to the time.

3

Great job. Thank you. A marathon effort.

I notice that Waze is now giving some good alternative routes, avoiding the tunnel. That’s going to help a lot of Wazers tonight and during the future planned closures this year.

4

Not entirely - I don’t want to take credit for more than I did. :wink:

In this case, I use the Advanced Closures script. That allows me to specify a start and end date, a daily starting time, a closure duration, and what days of the week to apply a closure. Once the details are in, I hit the “Apply” button and sit there for a few minutes as the script does the closures one by one. When the screen stops flickering, it’s done. :mrgreen:

I know we’ve talked elsewhere about closures, particularly with the Closure Monitor being offline this weekend. My first thought on seeing your request was to wonder how I missed the tunnel closures the last couple of nights. But the clue is in the name of the organisation that provides the feed: Highways England. The Welsh and Scottish equivalents do not provide similar feeds, so closures outside England are entirely dependent on local editors reporting them and senior editors manually applying them.

5

Andrew - we’re going to have to review these closures. I’ve just been alerted by a UK Champ who just drove through the supposedly closed tunnel tonight.

Reading the Traffic Wales web page again, I note something I missed before (my emphasis):

Checking the Traffic Wales Twitter feed, the tunnel was only closed Monday night this week, but we’ve had it closed every night! You’ve even responded to a UR from a driver who was diverted on a night it probably wasn’t closed. I’ve now removed tonight’s closure.

Practically speaking, I think we’re going to have to remove all the nightly closures and just leave the weekend ones in place. There’s no real alternative to the M4 for longer routes around here, particularly as the diversion delay won’t be enormous.

If a closure is in place, it will be well signed, so Waze users shouldn’t have trouble taking the necessary diversion. And I think it’s better that Wazers get directed towards a tunnel we might not be expected to know is closed - as opposed to being given silly instructions to work around a tunnel that isn’t.

6

Andrew and I have discussed this by PM. First off, the UR was nothing to do with the closures - my bad. :oops:

The nature of the geography and the roads around here means there isn’t a real alternative for longer routes. Although the diversion will cause a delay, it won’t be enough delay to be worth abandoning the M4 completely.

I’ve also observed the tunnel “directly” tonight, monitoring live cameras and the matrix signs. At 8pm, signs said only “Roadworks. Slow Down”. Cameras showed traffic running through the tunnel. Traffic Wales website showed no closure. Nothing on the TW twitter feed. So I pushed the closure start time back to 21:00.

When I checked again at 8:13, the tunnel was closed. The matrix sign before it said “Exit now”; cameras showed no traffic; TW website showed a closure and they tweeted the closure at 20:04. I changed the closure start time back to then.

So they aren’t giving any advance warning, so they presumably don’t see any alternative routes that they think drivers might otherwise take. There seems to be no way to know if they’re actually going to close the tunnel.

I’m going to remove all the weeknight closures. I’ve changed the title of this topic to start “Brynglas Tunnel”: if you or anyone else posts on this topic to say a closure is on, I should notice it relatively quickly. I’ll ask the other UK champs to also keep an eye open.

7

Great job. Thanks for your help Iain. I’m sure quite a few Wazers will benefit as the app guides them around the closed tunnel and the queue.

8

My Level: 1
Area Manager: No

Would a level 5 or above please add this closure. Thanks, Andrew (a2bpdq)

Location: M4 Brynglas Tunnel (Eastbound Only), Newport, Wales Permalink
Reason: Tunnel Refurbishment
Start: 24 October, 2017 20:00
End: 25 October, 2017 06:00
Sources: Traffic Wales, M4 Cameras (Seen closed at 8:14pm)

9

Added for tonight.

10

Thanks Andrew (PealRinger).

I can see the vehicle in the hard-shoulder getting ready to close off the road. Thanks for setting up the closure for tonight (Wednesday 25th October 2017). It looks like the tunnel will be closed more or less on time. Usually by about 8:12pm.

11

Andrew, thanks for updating the closure time for tonight (26th October 2017). 8:20pm should work better than 8:00pm.

12

Last night, Thursday 26th October, the tunnel closure worked much better.

Thursday
8:20pm Tunnel Closed on Map
8:20pm Waze giving Diversion Routes
8:40pm Tunnel Actually Closed

Better than the night before.

Wednesday
8:00pm Tunnel Closed on Map
8:00pm Waze giving Diversion Routes
8:05pm Tunnel Automatically Re-Opened on Map (Despite being programmed as closed)
8:40pm Tunnel Actually Closed
9:25pm Tunnel Closed on Map (Again)
9:30pm Waze giving Diversion Routes

So closing too early can cause Waze to ignore the closure and then it takes 40 minutes of actually being closed before Waze gets it right.

Last night we were lucky that the Tunnel did not get automatically reopened. Waze was only wrong for 20 minutes last night when it had the tunnel marked as closed when it wasn’t actually closed.

Ideally, the closure would be applied as soon as we see it is definitely closed. I plan to watch it tonight starting 8pm.

13

My Level: 1
Area Manager: No

Would a level 5 or above please add this closure. Thanks, Andrew (a2bpdq)

Location: M4 Brynglas Tunnel (Eastbound Only), Newport, Wales Permalink
Reason: Tunnel Refurbishment
Start: 27 October, 2017 20:00
End: 28 October, 2017 06:00
Sources: Traffic Wales, M4 Cameras (Seen closed at 10:20pm)

14

Friday
10:20pm Tunnel Actually Closed
10:20pm Tunnel Remains Open on Map
10:20pm Waze continues to Route Through the Closed Tunnel

Last night the map was not updated with the tunnel closure at all. So Waze would have been wrong for up to 7 hours and 40 minutes.

Apart from driving to the location and using the app to mark the road as closed, we rely on editors with higher ranks to do the closures for us. Unfortunately none were available to do this on Friday night.

We should not expect volunteer editors to be on duty, as such, but it would be good if some procedure could be set up allowing an observer of the actual closure to get the closure implemented more or less immediately.

The ranking system prevents damage to the map by inexperienced editors but it also puts the responsibility of doing these motorway closures on the level 5+ ranks (in this case).

Can anything be done to make this work better?

Some ideas would be:

  • Setting up a semi-automated closure system, similar to ClosureMonitor* The system has the authority to add and remove closures* Users of the system can include any Wazers who are on the operators list* Operators are trained/authorised* Operators can instruct the system to add or remove the closures* A list of closable segments limits the scope of the system* All activity is logged to ensure correct use of the system* Temporary downgrade of lock level* Downgrade M5/A4 to level M3/A4 on the tunnel segment* Allowing the closure to be added by a level 3* This increases the number of editors who could do the closure* Takes pressure off the L5+ editors* Re-locked most of the time and downgraded temporarily on scheduled work nights* Currently the downgrade is needed every Monday to Friday from 8:00am to 6:00pm

Everyone here puts a lot of work into Waze and their efforts are much appreciated but we are all let down when the Waze map is wrong. So I do hope some solution can be found.

Andrew (a2bpdq)

15

My Level: 1
Area Manager: No

Would a level 5 or above please add this closure. Thanks, Andrew (a2bpdq)

Scheduled for Eastbound but actually seen as Westbound.

Location: M4 Brynglas Tunnel (Westbound Only), Newport, Wales Permalink
Reason: Tunnel Refurbishment
Start: 31 October, 2017 20:00
End: 01 November, 2017 06:00
Sources: Traffic Wales, M4 Cameras (Seen closed at 8:40pm)

16

Westbound closure added. Sorry that nobody spotted this earlier. We’ve had problems with closures across the country and getting the Traffic England ones in had us preoccupied.

17

My Level: 1
Area Manager: No

Would a level 5 or above please add this closure. Thanks, Andrew (a2bpdq)

Scheduled for Eastbound but actually seen as Westbound.

Location: M4 Brynglas Tunnel (Westbound Only), Newport, Wales Permalink
Reason: Tunnel Refurbishment
Start: 01 November, 2017 20:00
End: 02 November, 2017 06:00
Sources: Traffic Wales, M4 Cameras (Seen closed at 9:40pm)

18

Done. :mrgreen:

19

My Level: 2
Area Manager: No

Would a level 5 or above please add this closure. Thanks, Andrew (a2bpdq)

Scheduled for Eastbound but actually seen as Westbound.

Location: M4 Brynglas Tunnel (Westbound Only), Newport, Wales Permalink
Reason: Tunnel Refurbishment
Start: 03 November, 2017 20:00
End: 03 November, 2017 06:00
Sources: Traffic Wales, M4 Cameras (Seen closed at 9:45pm)

20

Closure expired. Next one due tonight.