Watford Road

THE CHALLENGE

SYSTRA were appointed by the London Borough of Brent to undertake a review of Watford Road including its junctions with the Northwick Park and John Lyon roundabouts to mitigate the high number of accidents.

Following the review which comprised accident analysis and detailed traffic surveys, outline designs were developed and modelled by SYSTRA’s traffic modelling team.

Within the stud area the following locations were identified as requiring intervention:

• Northwick Park Roundabout: partial signalisation and capacity improvements to address a high number of shunt type accidents;
• Junctions into and out of Northwick Park Hospital; and
• Access into a mini-golf facility towards the south end of Watford Road

SYSTRA’S ROLE

SYSTRA drew upon the depth of its highways and traffic engineering experience to develop solutions based on a detailed accident analysis of the study area. Potential options were designed with a view to low cost solutions.

Detailed inventory was compiled throughout the study area including road markings, signs and critical dimensions. These formed the basis of the proposed layouts.

Traffic modelling utilising microsimulation tools, VISSIM, were used to test and refine the proposed layouts. A report drawing together the different elements of traffic engineering was compiled and presented to the London Borough of Brent as the final study output.

SYSTRA has subsequently been commissioned to progress the traffic modelling through the various TfL MAP audit stages and also to undertake detailed design of the highways schemes.

In addition to a wealth of engineering experience, SYSTRA utilised a number of specialist software packages to prepare the detailed design submissions; including:

• AutoTrack: vehicle swept path analysis tool;
• VISSIM: microsimulation modelling tool