My Level: 3
Area Manager: No

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

Location: M4 Brynglas Tunnel (Eastbound Only), Newport, Wales Permalink
Reason: Tunnel Refurbishment
Start: 12 Jun, 2018 20:00
End: 13 Jun, 2018 06:00
Sources: Traffic Wales, M4 Cameras (Closed before 8:45pm)

My Level: 3
Area Manager: No

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

Location: M4 Brynglas Tunnel (Eastbound Only), Newport, Wales Permalink
Reason: Tunnel Refurbishment
Start: 13 Jun, 2018 20:00
End: 14 Jun, 2018 06:00
Sources: Traffic Wales, M4 Cameras (Closed before 9:10pm)

My Level: 3
Area Manager: No

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

Location: M4 Brynglas Tunnel (Eastbound Only), Newport, Wales Permalink
Reason: Tunnel Refurbishment
Start: 14 Jun, 2018 20:00
End: 15 Jun, 2018 06:00
Sources: Traffic Wales, M4 Cameras (Closed before 12:20am)

My Level: 3
Area Manager: No

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

Location: M4 Brynglas Tunnel (Eastbound Only), Newport, Wales Permalink
Reason: Tunnel Refurbishment
Start: 19 Jun, 2018 20:00
End: 20 Jun, 2018 06:00
Sources: Traffic Wales, M4 Cameras (Closed before 8:40pm)

Couple more Tunnel refurbishment works closures:

Eastbound
Tuesday 29/05/18 to Friday 01/06/18 - 8pm-6am

Westbound
Monday 04/06/18 to Friday 08/06/18 - 8pm-6am

(source: http://www.traffic-wales.com/VoyagerNew ... lang=en-gb)

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

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.

a2bpdq wrote:A marathon effort.

Not entirely - I don't want to take credit for more than I did.

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.

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.

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):

The M4 will be closed between junctions 25A and 26 from 8pm to 6am on up to five nights per week

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.

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

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.

Done.