Region

London Borough of Southwark

Population

317,256

Employees

3000+

Annual Budget

£293m

Solution

Mapper, Engagement & Streets

45% more traffic orders

in a 12 month period

Camille Fry
Southwark Council
Traffic Management Orders Officer, Highways Division

Overview

Challenge

Southwark Council set themselves an ambitious target to process and install 200 cycle hangar bays over the last 12 months across the Borough to address a surge in demand and the resultant backlog of outstanding requests. Cycle hangars are a priority for Southwark as they are seen as a crucial way in which residents can make more sustainable travel choices, adopt healthier lifestyles, and crucially help the borough achieve the mayor’s ambition of a net-zero London by 2030.

Councils managing their traffic orders digitally is not an entirely new concept, however, using traffic order management to improve active travel outcomes and help the borough reach net-zero targets puts Southwark at the forefront of traffic order management practices.

Outcomes

Solution

Southwark Council were the first highway authority to sign up to AppyWay’s traffic order management software Traffic Suite and quickly realised the potential that the Traffic Suite offered in tackling the backlog of cycle hangar requests.  Traffic Suite enables Southwark to easily record the location of proposed cycle bays and set up the required documentation and statutory consultation.

The AppyWay award-winning traffic order management software being map-based saved Southwark officers a significant amount of time by enabling bay locations to be drawn/modified on an interactive map rather than be defined via the previous/traditional text-based approach which typically requires multiple site visits.  The use of the automatically generated map schedules via AppyWay’s Traffic Suite provides a format which is easily understood by consultees which has helped reduce the burden on Southwark’s officers in explaining the details of what is being consulted upon, something that happened more often prior to adopting Traffic Suite.

By adopting a more streamlined, flexible, and shareable approach to traffic order management and data handling, Southwark Council has shown that traffic orders can unlock innovation and decarbonisation.

Results

The use of AppyWay’s Traffic Suite has enabled Southwark Council to deliver above and beyond their original goal. Via the suite Southwark has:

  • Slashed the time it takes to amend and implement static order cycle hangar schemes, from 5 weeks to 2
  • Doubled their initial goal of cycle hangars, installing 200 in the last two years but now aiming to install 200 over the next 12 months
  • Dramatically reduced the need for time-consuming site visits by providing designers with a real-time view of active traffic orders on street
  • Putting the time savings into action, Southwark published 45% more traffic orders in a 12-month period once using the software, than in the year prior to onboarding, increasing their output

60 cycle hangar traffic orders made within the AppyWay Traffic Suite

”The AppyWay Traffic Order suite has had the most impact in Southwark Council’s process for implementing batched schemes and parking zones. This is where we have seen the real savings in time in the traffic order making process. The adoption of the map-based system has removed the need to define the location of each restriction within the Traffic Order and the need to create new documents for different restriction types, which were necessary using a text-based process. The map-based system makes amending static restrictions in the street much simpler as our designers have a real time view of existing restrictions such as parking and yellow lines, which has also cut down on repeated site visits. Batched schemes, such as implementing new cycle hangars, which would typically take 5 weeks to draft the text-based Orders for, can be completed in 2 weeks with the map-based system AppyWay provides.

Camille FryTraffic Management Orders Officer, Highways Division

Figure 1, cycle hangar scheme created 13th January 2022

”With hundreds of individual requests for cycle hangar spaces received each year, Southwark Council has committed to increasing the number of cycle hangars in the borough year upon year. Over the last 2 years Southwark Council has doubled the existing cycle hangars in the borough and installed over 200 units to address the growing demand for secure cycle parking. Southwark’s target is to implement a further 200 new cycle hangars in the borough over the next 12 months, which can only be achieved with an efficient process for design, consultation and legislation such as AppyWay’s Traffic Order Suite provides.

Camille FryTraffic Management Orders Officer, Highways Division

Figure 2, cycle hangar scheme created 10th March 2022

Figure 3, Cycle hangar scheme created 23rd March 2022

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