Page 38 - Phonebox Magazine February 2010

Travel News – whether you want it or not! Steve Clark
The introduction of the Radio Data System in FM broadcasting dates back to the mid 1980’s, having begun as a project of the European Broadcasting Union and subsequently being adopted as an IEC standard. RDS allows additional digital information, such as a time signal, programme information and station identity, to be broadcast with the radio transmission. Some aspects of RDS are very useful. For example the AF (Alternative Frequency) signal allows for a car radio to search for a stronger signal of the transmission. Thus it is possible to tune in to one of the national BBC FM services and drive several hundred miles without needing to retune the receiver. However some aspects of RDS can be less welcome, with traffic announcements often being the most irritating!
Most FM car radios have a facility known as EON (Enhanced Other Networks) which allows the receiver to monitor other networks for traffic announcements. When enabled, the EON system enables the motorist to receive that announcement by interrupting and pausing whatever was being listened to at the time. Whilst this is a very useful concept when urgent travel news is being transmitted in the area where you are travelling, the travel announcements are often completely useless. Accurate travel announcements can be incredibly helpful during times of weather disruption, such as the conditions prevailing in the UK during the latter half of December and the start of the New Year. On Wednesday 6th January, I set off from Olney to travel to Norfolk for an important meeting. I knew that there was fairly heavy snow locally, but was not sure quite what to expect during my 100 mile journey. By using the EON system I was able to monitor travel broadcasts throughout the trip.
Whilst traffic information can be helpful in such circumstances, it can be utterly tedious in others. If you have a relatively easy trip with no travel issues on your journey you do not need to be informed that there are no
problems! Why, for example, is it thought necessary to interrupt normal programmes to tell motorists that all the local roads are running smoothly and all trains are running on time? It is probably not fair to pick on any particular station, but BBC Radio Northampton is often a culprit of this type of behaviour. “Travel news every fifteen minutes when you need it most” often really means “Travel news every fifteen minutes whether you want it or not”. Many motorists get so fed up of such unwarranted interruptions that they turn off the traffic announcement facility. Unfortunately, this means that any critical information when there is a genuine emergency is subsequently missed.
I have never fully understood the perceived need for national traffic announcements, yet Sally Boazman’s regular reports on Radio 2 for more than ten years have built her an army of dedicated fans. I don’t really want to know about traffic delays in Edinburgh if I happen to be driving to Oxford, but there clearly must be those that do! Sally’s reports are well-respected for their accuracy, such that they are said to be used as an information source by the Highways Agency. Indeed it is the accuracy of traffic information that is the critical factor in gaining and keeping the respect and trust of motorists.
Local radio stations tend to use a wide range of sources for travel news. Some have used the likes of AA Roadwatch whilst others tend to rely on reports from roadside restaurants, garages and the general public. Sometimes there is a delay in the transmission of an ‘urgent’ message from a member of the public as broadcasters often wait for verification of an incident by the police or other emergency services. I recall an occasion when I was travelling through Cambridgeshire and witnessed an accident immediately ahead of me. The driver of a light goods vehicle failed to notice that a lorry directly ahead of him was coming to a stop. As a result, the light goods vehicle ploughed into the back of the lorry,
sustaining considerable damage in the process. It just happened that there was a police vehicle just behind me, and the officers in that vehicle immediately pulled alongside the crash scene and closed the road. Within two minutes BBC Radio Cambridgeshire had put out a traffic flash about the incident, giving the precise location so that drivers in the vicinity had a chance to avoid the scene. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries to any of the occupants of the vehicles.
Having witnessed how effective a rapid broadcast of a traffic incident can be, I have also experienced the exact opposite. A couple of years ago I was travelling southbound on the M6 just north of Corley services. It was early evening and my journey home from north Cornwall had been interrupted by dozens of traffic announcements from the various stations in the West Midlands area. Unfortunately many of the local stations tend to go into a ‘network’ mode through the evening, and at that time the network transmissions did not feature any travel information at all. Consequently, when all three lanes of the motorway came to a grinding halt and remained so for a considerable time, there was no immediate way of finding out what had happened. Those of us who were on the M6 southbound on that November night ended up parked on the carriageway for about four hours. Sadly this incident did involve a fatality, although the casualty was in a vehicle that had gone off the carriageway and down the embankment. Thus there was actually no blockage on the carriageway itself, except for the police closure that was in place to enable the incident to be surveyed and analysed. Some information during the closure would have been helpful, if only to give us all a likely indication of the delay. Those that were able to access the Highways Agency website were able to share what information there was with those in vehicles immediately around them.
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38 Phonebox Magazine