Keeping it local on Exhibition Road
The redesign of Exhibition Road will be the largest shared-space scheme in the world in terms of both numbers of pedestrians and vehicles and geographical area. Over £27 million is being spent on redeveloping the road into an area suitable for the 11.5 million visitors each year. The project has been funded jointly by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster City Council and Transport for London.
Like most large community projects, the Royal Borough wanted to involve the people affected by the redesign as much as possible. By hiring Imperial researchers as consultants to the project, they’ve not only received world class expert advice, but also generated enthusiasm within the College community about the scheme.
“Imperial has an incredibly good reputation and is also on Exhibition Road – the combination was almost too good to be true! “ explains Bill Mount, lead officer for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. “The consultancy projects were the easiest way to make the most of it.”
Traffic monitoring and evaluation
Through Imperial Consultants, the Royal Borough has access to world class expertise and advice on traffic monitoring. Students at the Centre for Transport Studies have been working on monitoring a number of different stages of the project. From video analysis of vehicle-pedestrian conflicts to performing skid resistance tests on different surfaces, the results they’ve presented to the design team have been invaluable to the development of the scheme.
Professor Mike Bell explains why the collaboration benefits both parties: “This scheme is unique – the largest of its kind in the world. It’s fantastic to be involved with this project as it’s a real-life traffic engineering scheme for our students to work with.”
Accessibility was a key concern for the site designers, and Professor Bell and his team have also been monitoring and evaluating the pedestrian experience and the willingness of pedestrians and drivers to share the road.
Long-term collaboration
“This project and our involvement with Imperial doesn’t end when the construction work does. It’s a long-term relationship with a wealth of potential student projects – there are still monitoring and technology improvements to be made to the area.” says Bill Mount.
Various projects to revitalise Exhibition road have been promoted since the early 1990s, but the shared space scheme is the first to receive funding and actually be implemented. The scheme will make Exhibition road the most accessible cultural destination in the world, realising the vision of Prince Albert when he first drove the development around Exhibition road in the 1850s.
To find out more about working with academics at Imperial on your traffic engineering scheme, please contact us.
