The Future The Route Masters: Running London's Roads

This programme contains some strong language.

London is full up...

CAR HORNS

Are you going to allow them to jump on the back of your bus?

I'm afraid I won't be able to take any more passengers.

..thanks to a million more people arriving in the last ten years.

Transport for London now has more than 30,000 workers battling

day and night...

WHISTLES Wake up!

..to stop the city grinding to a halt.

-Two people have been shot up there.

-War. It's war!

I'll get the police and ambulance straight down there.

The first week I was here, I thought, what have I done?

With unique access to the nerve centre of the capital's transport

system, this is the inside story of the people who keep London moving.

You're not only a bus driver. You become a psychotherapist and psychiatrist.

The people that like to talk to you, some of them even flirt with you.

I said, "Sit down quietly.

"We're not going to Hell, we're going to Ilford!"

It's the lifeblood of London. The buses are red, aren't they?

LAUGHS

Here's my certificate. Look, I'm a bus driver!

LAUGHTER

-Thank you very much. You are so nice.

-Don't worry. No problem at all.

London's changed a lot, but yeah, I love it. It's London.

That's us. She wants to talk to me. Fleet Aurora.

The time is now 7am, if you can open the ticket office, please?

Hold on tight!

Every working day in London,

there are now six million bus journeys,

half a million cycle trips, 8,500 boat rides,

23,000 cabbies looking for fares, 250,000 lorry deliveries,

and above all, ten million car journeys.

I'm quite an accepting person, but I didn't realise how bad it would be.

No, there's not a lot of margin for error in the city.

It is the largest human migration in the country.

And it's going to get bigger.

This bus is racing me, look.

We're in London. I'm going to hurry, am I?

Get real, people!

London's population is growing faster than anyone predicted,

with one million more people expected to be

living in the capital in the next ten years.

But the roads are already at capacity.

Yeah, Transport 8602, running from the A406, north west, over.

-'Yeah, received. Thank you.'

-Punch it, Chewie!

LAUGHS

It's on a knife edge.

It takes one little thing and it all just breaks down.

Because of this surge in numbers, Transport for London now pays

the Metropolitan Police, not to fight crime, but to fight traffic.

There's another crash just down here.

I think we've become less obedient road users.

Everyone's got so much pressure on them and there is so much traffic.

We can't cope with it. Look at animal behaviour in zoos.

With our behaviour getting worse,

the roads police unit now deal with collisions every day.

They are the capital's largest cause of congestion,

but they aren't usually high-speed pile-ups.

Most of London's collisions now happen in the slowest moving

rush hour traffic.

OK. Fantastic. All right. Bye.

-London's street traffic control centre watches over the roads.

-OK.

-What you got?

-RTC, car versus HGV.

-Lovely.

Sam Abbott despatches officers to the incidents affecting the network.

Joy(!) Oh, joy(!)

You can never change how people handle themselves on the road.

They're always going to do their own thing.

And you get some people who are very obedient

and some people...who are just not.

And...there it is.

Look, because everyone's in such a hurry,

they're driving up the kerb to get round the obstruction.

What's happened?

Just cut in on me. That's what they do. They come down here.

Rather than waiting in the queue to get off the A13, the driver of

a hatchback has tried to cut in at the front, hitting a recovery truck.

So this is what happens.

You'll find that people will sneakily get into lane two

and cut to try and get in. We all do it from time to time.

I'm not going to lie! You shouldn't. Absolutely not.

Sergeant Chas Harris is questioning the driver of the car.

I wasn't there. I don't know precisely who moved where.

But he was in the right lane and you were trying to get in it.

He was in the right lane.

-You can't stop them, can you? All day long.

-In a hurry.

All day long, mate.

-Why are they doing it?

-Everyone's in a hurry. No-one wants to wait.

Everyone wants to get to the front of the queue and they have literally

driven past a long queue straight to the front

and tried to push their way in.

The point of it is that you shouldn't have been there.

I understand that. Yeah.

-Are you in a rush?

-I am! Yes!

But no-one is going anywhere.

In just a few minutes, the driver's actions have brought the rush hour

traffic to a standstill.

Now, this is not good.

They're taking out a lane. That is not normal for the time of day.

And it's because of my accident that I've got.

And it's increasing, as you can see.

Obviously, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It does have a big impact.

We now have traffic that's tailing back all the way to the

Blackwall Tunnel. The message is to all drivers to avoid the route.

Expect delays!

All three lanes are now open, over.

On the other side of the city,

another accident in slow moving traffic is causing serious delays.

I think you have got to be crackers to live and commute into London.

Good morning, lemmings!

All Sergeant Jerry Hillman can do is keep an eye on the motorists

stuck in the tailback.

I do pity them.

The road's been clear about ten minutes now.

No injuries, fortunately.

Sam Abbott is also watching Jerry's queues on the A40.

This is the A40 incident. Oh, no! It's not good.

Currently, the tailback's probably about three miles...bordering

four miles.

-Hello there.

-Do you happen to know how far this goes?

Up to the Polish war memorial.

CAR HORN Pack it in!

It's about a mile and a half up the road.

It's now clear, but it's going to take some time to alleviate.

Thank you.

Get some patience!

Available in shops now!

People do get very fractious. Understandably.

But if something stops them, even by a few seconds,

they will then take umbrage about it, out of all proportion.

Saving people from themselves.

If this keeps tailing back,

it's going to start clogging Hanger Lane up.

And then of course, the North Circular goes.

And that could take some considerable time to clear.

So I'll go and have a look.

If it gets back to Hanger Lane, it will be severe.

And severe is our highest priority.

That's when you get a big old red blob.

SIREN

I liken it to a stroke, basically.

You get one incident on one road and it will block up really,

really quickly.

But then, it will block up to a junction with another road,

which will then block up, and the whole thing will spread.

It's going up to severe anyway. Guys, I've put it up to severe.

Bonkers is normal. Welcome to London!

LAUGHS

But this is not how it was supposed to be.

'London, the greatest city the world has ever known.'

This is a great opportunity to improve traffic conditions.

And we must give them all the help we can.

After the war, Professor Patrick Abercrombie set forth a grand

vision of how London's roads would be rebuilt for the benefit of all.

Our plan is an idea, a plan for something that is living,

something that is growing.

The dream was that in the future, everyone would own a car

and that grand highways would transport us from place to place.

It's a pretty gigantic scheme,

affecting the future of the whole of London.

And I tell you what, there mustn't be any overcrowding.

London's arterial roads were built and the city streets were

transformed into the modern road network that millions attempt

to use today.

But Abercrombie's dream has become a nightmare.

Faced with this growing demand for our roads,

the city needs a radical solution.

It's up to one woman to come up with an answer.

We've got a plan.

Michele Dix is managing director of planning at Transport for London.

The level of growth that we're going to see in London over

the next 20 years is phenomenal.

It's the equivalent of two Birminghams coming into London.

That many more people, two million more people plonked down,

all these people competing for space.

Something's got to give.

Mega. It's a huge challenge.

If Michele is to keep London moving for the coming years, she needs

to convince us that changing how we use the roads is urgently required.

First on the agenda is the car.

Car isn't king any more.

We want to encourage those that don't need to use the car to use

public transport, walk or cycle.

That's what we want to do and the more of that we can do, the better.

If we all owned a car, the whole place would be stuffed up, so we can't all own a car and use a car.

You can own a car, but not use it at the same time

and you certainly can't all use it just to go to work at the same time.

But getting us out of our cars won't be easy.

How to get people out of cars? I don't know whether you can.

People are addicted to their car.

People put so much faith into their car.

You're master of your own destiny.

Yes, it's like anything, it's a challenge.

It's problem solving, isn't it?

They're not going to change just because you want them to.

With millions of people arriving soon and the future of London

at stake, Michele has a radical approach to solving the problem.

You do need to work out what buttons you have to push in people's heads.

So if you wanted to go from A to B by car and we want them to use public

transport, one way of making it more difficult is making it harder

to park at the other end.

You have to understand people's behaviour, people's psychology.

It's a case of looking at carrots and sticks.

Not necessarily big sticks, but you can't just have carrots.

Transport for London's biggest stick of all is CCTV enforcement.

5,000 cameras are manned by over 50 CCTV operators 24 hours a day

and issue fines to motorists directly.

Well, why not?

I'd be very surprised if there's another city in the world that

gives out as many penalty charge notices as we do.

I don't think there is. It's like Spock said,

the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

It's the evening rush hour and thousands of motorists

are trying to get home along East India Dock Road.

To ensure the roads don't become blocked,

each driver caught stopping in the middle of the junction

for more than five seconds is fined £130.

During the rush hour, it is

Transport for London's busiest yellow box junction.

Oh, no! No! I didn't! Oh, my God! You're joking!

It's ridiculous. They've got to do something about it.

Just hoping and praying the camera's not working.

So I don't get a fine!

They know they're blocking it.

Give them five seconds, zoom in, you take their plate, zoom out, you

get more evidence, and then you put the details through and process it.

It's like Space Invaders.

You're trying to catch these things that are moving away from you and

panning and tilting and moving the camera, chasing them down the road.

This camera alone issues penalties worth £20,000 every week.

Is he going to get out of the way? He's thinking about it. Not sure.

I think he's from France. Let's have a look. Is he from France?

-What do you think of the traffic?

-Uh...difficult!

Difficult!

'Yeah, France.

'Bloody French, yeah.'

So you see a little bit of space and you go for it.

OK, so it's getting busy now. You're far more likely to take a risk if you've been in traffic,

slowish moving traffic, all day and you want to get somewhere.

You're going to take that risk, going to chance it. Desperation.

The A4 has gone down to moderate.

All right.

In the fastest growing part of London,

the drivers aren't just blocking junctions,

they're finding even more extreme ways to escape the traffic.

There's nothing to it.

It's quite easy for them to take the option of cutting onto that

little bit of dirt and you understand why they do it.

Sergeant Chas Harris has been despatched to lie in wait

and catch the rule breakers.

Can't see the blue light over the hedge, can they?

No, I wouldn't have thought so. We'll be too low.

There's a nice blind spot.

Catch them out while they're doing it.

Let's give it a couple of minutes and see what happens.

The council got the bollards put in, but obviously, the resourcefulness

of the motoring public has managed to find a gap between them.

The missus and I saw a shooting star last night.

About 150-200m to the roundabout.

They save about four minutes and four minutes, as we all know,

in traffic time, is forever, isn't it?

In normal time, it's nothing.

But in traffic time, you know, you might as well read War And Peace.

Hello! Hello-hello-hello.

You're the first today. But we've only just got here.

I think they're sneaky.

I think they know.

-Hello, sir.

-Officer.

The reason I've just stopped you is you've just driven across a verge.

It's not the road, is it?

The fine for using the cut-through is £30.

If you stay over there, you can stay half an hour here.

You can check my record. I don't have a criminal record.

-I don't doubt that.

-It's my mistake.

Life finds a way, doesn't it? It's like weeds.

They'll find a way to grow anywhere.

Very sorry. Never going to happen again.

Traffic is traffic. You have to wait.

I would never ever go there again.

-You didn't wait.

-You didn't wait, we pay for that.

Right.

The law empowers me

to take a picture of you as well for identification purposes.

He's pleading his case. He's getting very animated.

My wife is pregnant with a kid there.

It's an absolute nightmare, this road. An absolute nightmare.

But the thing is though, they come down here and...

Look, there's another one, look.

There's a man in a white van.

If you don't do that...

If you don't do that, you could be taken to court for the matter.

All right?

I'll pay 30 quid.

Unlucky!

I think people are more inclined now to see if they can nick a bit,

if there's a way round something

and they don't always think of the consequences.

Honest answer, everyone is frustrated, stressed out.

Added taxes, the boss, inflation. It all adds up.

I'm not going to do that again in my life!

Doesn't time fly when you're having fun?

It's the pace of life, isn't it?

The only way round it is forcing them not to use the roads in such numbers.

I can't see any other stick and carrot will work, really.

It's going to have to be a baseball bat approach, isn't it?

Drivers are not the only ones who are breaking the rules

to speed up their journeys.

Cyclists? Oh, they're terrible.

Well, not all of 'em.

Yeah, all of 'em!

They just go through red lights.

The number of cyclists in London has trebled in the last ten years.

That one there, I saw him there.

You're totally surrounded by them. They're everywhere.

Slows you down a bit, yeah.

Faced with increasing traffic using the roads,

Transport For London now wants cycle journeys to increase

to two million every day.

As many as use the Underground.

Watching over this new tribe on London's roads is a specialist

cycle task force.

Good morning! Morning!

Good morning!

One way to get around!

Today PCs Tony Austen and John Harrison are targeting

Elephant And Castle roundabout in South London.

a notorious spot for red light jumpers.

It's good to see more people around cycling and keeping fit.

I just wish that they adhered to the laws and stopped at red lights.

But...as you can see...

Oh, they have stopped.

I was going to say they're not but they have stopped for once.

Once one person does it at the front of the pack,

others will be tempted to do it.

You can punish people and hopefully change their behaviour.

Stop!

What happened there?

I just find it easier to go through the lights when... It's just easier.

Well, it may be easier, but the lights are there for a reason.

Metro Lima receiving 607.

I think certain traffic lights are different, you know.

If you're joining a busy road like that fairly quickly,

then I think it's safe to do so.

But if you wait for that light to go green,

you've got an HGV behind you,

you've got 20 other cyclists, it just gets a bit messy.

So I find it... I think it's safer.

I know it's wrong and I can't really disagree with him, so...

And he's bigger than me, so...

I'm just going to have to pay my 30 quid, I think.

They're on a mission. They're on their way to work.

They're trying to beat their personal best time

getting to work and traffic lights are an inconvenience,

and they're the people we need to target.

Pull in, please.

You versus a car or van - who do you reckon will win?

Yeah?

-It's not going to be pretty, is it?

-No.

She didn't even look at the lights. Couldn't tell you what they were.

OK, it was my fault.

I know it was my fault, but, yeah, I'll be more careful.

I go on a red light very often, but I always have a look.

-To be fully honest...

-But the problem is, you shouldn't.

You should stop at a red light.

It's going to come quite expensive, isn't it?

There you go.

He's had fines already and he's still, in his own words,

he still jumps red lights.

So does enforcement work?

Most of the time, yes, but for people like him, when he said,

"I've had fines," probably not.

With a cycling revolution happening on the capital's streets,

Transport For London's traffic controllers must now also

contend with this new breed of road user.

We are expecting a cycling demo called Critical Mass,

and we don't really know much about it until it actually happens.

So we have to have all the cameras up.

When they do set off, they do

cause quite a bit of disruption to the network.

It's kind of like chasing a chicken round a...

you know, a back yard or something.

We never quite know where they're going to go.

DEMONSTRATORS SHOUT

Critical Masses! This is a special one today!

ALL CHEER

Hundreds of cycle activists are assembling on the South Bank

of the Thames, keen to show their strength

and bring the city to a standstill.

It's like one day a month where we get priority on the roads,

so it's a nice change.

Well, here we go then!

It's like a flock of birds.

Sometimes we're going along one road and then suddenly we just turn

and go up another road for no reason at all.

Oh, hang on. Oh!

There were go.

At 7pm, the cyclists enter the busy evening traffic.

Ali, they've started now.

CYCLE HORN TOOTS

We have two be on the ball at all times. Can't be blase about it.

It's not going to be fun if you're driving around London.

DEMONSTRATORS SHOUT

Critical Mass cycle rides?

Nah, they've got nothing else better to do!

Knob!

You can't please them all all of the time.

To help keep the city from gridlock, Andy must take control

of London's traffic lights and change them to ease the congestion.

As we follow the cyclists around, we try

and help the guys that have been stuck behind them.

So we'll give them an increased amount of green time.

It's one of the improvisational arts, I think.

CYCLE HORN TOOTS

It's not long before the cyclists start to antagonise the motorists.

Hurry up, come on!

It's mellow. People realise we're just taking it easy.

We're not trying to cause any harm.

Sometimes people get aggressive,

but then they realise they're just wrong.

WHISTLING AND SHOUTING

As the demonstration grows, more cyclists join in.

Gradually, the West End is brought to a standstill.

MUSIC POUNDS

I'm not going to go, am I?

They're taking a very roundabout route

and then turning down Regent Street.

It's just anarchy, innit, I suppose.

DEMONSTRATORS SHOUT

-It's like a revolution!

-A revolution?

-Yeah!

You can do what you like in London. It's brilliant!

-Where are you from?

-From the Isle of Wight.

But for Andy, keeping up with the cyclists on the cameras

is a challenge in itself.

This Critical Mass demo, your cab 7873,

do you know where they are now?

We've lost them again, basically. They might spring up somewhere.

I have to wait, innit? Nothing to do.

This is a very big mass this evening.

This is much bigger than they would normally be.

CAR HORN BLARES

Oi! There's police coming! What are you doing?

Calm down! Calm down!

I'm late for a funeral!

I'm so late for a funeral and I have to be there.

It finishes at ten and I'm trying to get there as soon as possible.

MUSIC POUNDS

Of course we're annoying people this evening,

because what we're doing is in some way selfish,

but then everyone is on the road being selfish.

ANDY: Ultimately, no-one wants to be told what to do. It's freedom.

After three hours causing havoc in the city,

the cyclists have dispersed.

Andy's shift is over.

Had I known that it would be like this, I'd have probably...

..tried to get the day off.

Whilst Transport For London's cameras

could only watch the cyclists, motorists aren't so lucky.

Last year in London almost five million penalty charges were issued

to motorists.

Combined with the Congestion Charge, London's streets

are now the most expensive to drive in the country.

Yeah, it's a Volkswagen Polo.

And if you don't pay your way, Transport For London will fine you.

This is the nerve centre.

This is inside the ANPR van,

the automatic numberplate recognition van.

It's got cameras front and rear.

If a registration flags up that is of interest to us,

the chaps down the road will pull it in

and investigate and see what we've got.

Yeah, we've got it stopped.

Right, who are the bailiffs?

This morning a team of bailiffs is working with police to catch

drivers who have unpaid Congestion Charges or parking fines.

We've got Brian the bailiff in tow.

The message is, if you're a bit naughty

and manage to get a fine it can work out very expensive.

It's a parking matter. No valid ticket.

The amount outstanding, as we talk, is £557.24.

This is for what, a parking ticket?

Yes, and we do take debit, credit cards, cash.

If you've got friends or relatives that can assist you,

we'll try and make it as easy as possible.

It's a hard way to learn,

paying all this money for outstanding fines?

But, yeah, eventually, people do, once they've been bitten,

they're twice shy.

Hello, there.

'£1,400.'

£1,412.66 outstanding in Congestion Charge.

The roads are still congested, it's just another tax.

No, they want to take the car.

It just seems to be another way of generating some more tax.

Have you got your card available?

-Can you afford to pay anything today?

-What, like 20 quid?

-No, it's got to be...

-I ain't got no money!

-Life is not like that, bruv! It's hard!

-So what would you propose to...

to pay a week?

-To get this out of the way.

-I'll sort something out a week.

-Right, so if I send the bailiff round to your new address?

-Yeah?

Yeah? OK?

-What...?

-Away you go. All right? The cars only with a small amount.

-Yeah, well... When you say a small amount?

-Well, not worth the fine.

You're saying it's not even with a fine?

It's not even worth the fine and the aggravation to seize it.

-All right?

-Unreal!

You got four police off-roaders parked up on the side there

and about 20 police.

For parking tickets.

Beats me. That's London these days, bruv, eh?

We've got to live with it, haven't we, eh? Have a good day.

I don't think we can actually see the restriction.

Hanger Lane gyratory.

In the Street Traffic Control Centre, Michele Dix can

find out precisely how behaviour on the road is changing.

-Are we monitoring parallel routes?

-Yes.

Oh, good, so they can extrapolate that...

'You've got to influence people if you're going to manage the city.'

It can't just be about being nice

and saying "We're going to make lovely for everybody.

"You can do what you like when you like."

It's not possible. We did that many years ago and look where we got.

We got traffic all over towns.

Everyone wanted to use their cars, drive everywhere. It was a mess.

So we thought, well, we'll introduce parking charges.

I don't think we can actually see the restriction exactly,

but we've got the nearest camera, in Lower Thames Street.

People do what they think is best for them.

You can nudge them positively, you can nudge them negatively.

There might be a lot of nudging needed.

In fact, there's a hell of a lot of nudging needed

to move things forward.

'Queues for the time being on all approaches to Victoria...'

But the roads of London will not be so easily tamed.

The traffic planners think, "Oh, this will work

"because everyone will do this and everyone will do that

"and that traffic will stop..." But it's not like that.

Life isn't like that.

If we could sit down at the beginning of our life,

at the beginning of our journey, and sit down and map it all out,

in theory, everything works.

In practice, it's not like that.

SIREN WAILS

Come on!

If you were dealing with all sensible people,

and everyone's acting sensibly and didn't block a junction

and there was an old lady crossing the road

and they'd slow down and let her cross the road

and didn't race up to the next junction

and slam their foot on the brakes,

yes, it would be a lovely world to live in.

INDISTINCT RADIO

Right, what have we got?

If people acted towards each other as we should be acting

towards each other...

But you'll never get that.

Of course we'll succeed.

We've been investing in technology to manage it better

and we're squeezing every last inch out of what we've got.

We've transformed the bus network.

We've got to help people make choices, other choices,

do things differently.

All right?

With the population growing rapidly, Transport For London has

invested over £100 million to encourage more bus passengers.

Yeah, receiving loud and clear. Thank you very much, sir.

-'No problem.'

-Things have improved an awful lot.

You've got dedicated bus lanes now.

The average car driver probably finds it frustrating.

He's sitting in standing traffic in one lane

and a bus goes along the bus lane moving quite freely.

You know, the journey time in his car is probably longer

than it is on the bus,

but he has got the choice of getting on the bus, hasn't he?

But in the fastest-growing parts of the city

the buses are becoming overcrowded and not everyone can fit on.

Although the city's bus routes are closely monitored,

demand is now outstripping supply.

Move right down, please.

Every morning, along the 343 bus route in South London,

passengers are getting left behind.

Move right down inside, please.

Two buses have gone by without stopping.

Two buses gone by! It's ridiculous.

Right, can you just hold it there, please? Hold it there.

We are full up.

No seats on the upper deck.

We're full up.

It's just a nightmare. It says there's a bus coming into minutes.

It rolls past and doesn't stop.

It's ridiculous. For the next four or five bus stops.

It's an absolute joke.

Yes, I accept people got left behind.

You know, we were up to capacity.

-How do you feel about that?

-How do

-I

-feel? Well, I've got no alternative.

The bus is full up.

One stop has become notorious for regularly

leaving passengers behind because the buses are already full.

Are you going to allow this, all jump on the back and we've been here

since quarter past seven?

-Let us in!

-He isn't going to let us in. Unbelievable.

-We are late! Open!

Thank you(!)

Furious!

Absolutely furious.

And now we're going to have to wait another 15 minutes for a bus.

We've been here now since quarter past seven.

It's now ten to eight.

You know, what you do? They need to improve the service.

I've lived here for eight years

and it wasn't like this in the beginning.

They've developed a lot of new properties in the area,

a lot of new people have moved in

but nothing has happened with the bus route.

It's an everyday occurrence.

There's another one, a packed bus. There you go.

Look, all on the back! Fantastic!

Shall we jump on the back, do you think?

It's the survival of the fittest, I would say.

Absolutely shocking.

We're actually taking a petition.

Three packed-solid buses.

Well, unless they do something about it now, it's going to get worse,

because there's more babies being born every day.

You can't have enough transport.

"We, the undersigned petitioners, request that

"Transport For London improves public transport

"along the 343 bus route."

The passengers are now demanding answers from Transport For London.

There were people arguing, families separated.

There were children crying because it was so full.

I've had drivers telling us, "It's not my problem."

TFL are really just lagging behind on this.

There's no bus that you'll be able to get on

because it will just go sailing past you.

Please, please, can we have something that this area deserves?

It always is very helpful when I hear things first-hand.

I will commit to taking what I've heard back...

Why haven't you done anything about it?

You talk about tinkering with other routes to send them down here

but, to be perfectly honest,

why not create a new route to come down here?

And you stand there and talk about your traffic light system

and your code red and this and that, what about what the passengers want?

There are certain areas and certain routes where perhaps the demand,

for whatever reason, is growing.

London is changing, London is developing all the time.

And we've increased the service

substantially over the last few years.

But by running the service more frequently,

that has attracted more people,

which means we need to look at frequency being put up again.

It is a culture of demanding things now.

This is not a criticism, but what would satisfy some people,

a bus every minute?

On some stretches of road in London

they've probably got one every two or three minutes.

If something is just good, they want it better, you know.

But it's not just bus passengers who want it better.

Please stay green, please stay green.

Every year, Transport For London receives

over 3,000 letters from motorists complaining about traffic lights.

It's frustration, really, that nobody does anything.

Linda Staines drives 12 miles to work every day.

It takes her over an hour.

She wrote in to complain about one set of lights

on the A13 that she believes cause her unnecessary misery.

An average morning is the traffic stops about two and a half miles

before this set of traffic lights.

And we travel at 10mph, stop start,

the whole way to the traffic lights, taking 20, 25 minutes.

When I'm near enough to the lights,

I have counted and I think it's about 18 seconds that they are red.

If they were only ten seconds, how much of our lives could we get back?

It's human beings that are coordinating

and setting the times on those machines.

We can't blame machines.

But what Linda doesn't know is that her traffic lights

ARE controlled by a machine.

Far from the city, hidden away in a top-secret location,

is a supercomputer.

It is Transport For London's most sophisticated weapon

in the battle to change how we are using the roads.

Well, then, you're trying to keep that frustration down to a minimum.

Trying to make their journey as perfect as possible,

or as optimal as possible, as smooth as possible.

We've been looking at the volume of traffic that exists in London.

John and Andy are responsible for maintaining the supercomputer,

known as UTC,

The Urban Traffic Control system.

I don't actually know how much they cost,

but I can't imagine they are cheap!

You're unlikely to find one at your home desk, I'd imagine.

The computer is the brain controlling London's traffic lights.

It constantly receives data about the flow of vehicles

across the city from sensors buried under the road, and changes

the lights second by second to move traffic as efficiently as it can.

The millions of movements across the city every second

arrive at the computer via a single yellow wire.

It holds back the tide of chaos.

I don't want to touch in case I break it.

If that got knocked or something, in theory,

all London's traffic signals would stop talking to the computer,

the brains here, and therefore

the coordination between the signals that you see would disappear.

Anyone who's using the road network relies on that bit of cable.

This equipment, it is ones and zeros,

but the output of those ones and zeros

is someone crossing a road on a green man,

someone driving through three, four, five green lights in a row.

It's fundamental to the entire way that London's traffic

is controlled, and without it London's traffic would be a lot worse

and a lot more congested.

You should have faith in the system, definitely.

But overall, it's looking at the whole rather than the individual

route that that person is taking at that moment in time.

75.

And the machine is getting cleverer.

Last shelf, third modem, sixth position.

Fourth modem, second position.

Fourth modem, third position?

Every day, the supercomputer tracks over 20 million journeys over the city.

But some journeys are more important to the supercomputer than others.

You're hearing nothing there, are you?

Yeah, it's truly exciting.

We're trying to put more brains, more intelligence,

more knowledge into it to improve as many journeys as possible.

The sensors in the road are now able to distinguish between different

types of road user.

Buses, bikes,

cars and pedestrians.

Andy is teaching the supercomputer how to prioritise one user

over another at junctions.

Giving buses and bicycles more green time than cars at traffic lights.

At key junctions, the computer is recalibrating the city

in favour of bikes and buses, changing how we choose to travel.

We try and push the boundaries.

It's a noble objective to try

and make all the journeys as perfect as possible, certainly.

Morning!

John and Tony from the Cycle Task Force are watching over

London's newly prioritised cyclists.

Cycling is what we are trying to promote. That's...

That's the way that things have to be.

They are on Cycle Superhighway 7,

part of Transport For London's new £1 billion scheme

to make cycling safer.

But despite these new lanes,

tempers still flare between drivers and cyclists.

HORN BLARES

ANGRY SHOUTING

It's him!

A blue van and a cyclist have nearly collided.

-DRIVER:

-How many lanes do you want?!

-I want you to stay away from me!

I want you to stop shouting. Further up ahead, my colleague...

'Just to give you a heads up,

'there's a cyclist coming up to speak to you and a van.'

Shouting like this. Shouting, shouting, shouting.

-What were you doing?

-All I did was to beep him,

to get into the cycle lane and stop weaving between lanes.

-No hand gestures?

-Yeah, in the end, because you were shouting...

-Calm down, calm down.

-You were shouting and cussing me.

He had an issue with me on a bike in front of him.

Tooting me, passing way too close in heavy traffic.

And waving his fist, making rude gestures...

I did give him a couple of hand gestures

because he was in front of me and weaving like this.

-Right.

-Sorry.

We've got to share the road, haven't we? And it doesn't always work.

But they don't share, they take over roads. That's what causes problems.

Cyclists are militant!

And my last signal to him was, "You're nuts, mate!"

I'm completely loopy, yeah. That's why I cycle in London.

-I saw the...

-Has he explained why...?

..frustration with both of you when you stopped at the lights.

I don't know if you want to shake hands. He is prepared to.

That's it, over and done with.

I'm sorry, and I didn't know that you'd be knocked off before.

Well, it shouldn't really make a difference.

Motorists get angry

because at the end of the day they get away with blue murder, we don't.

Just both of us got het up and... watch out for each other, I think.

See you soon, mate.

There is an accident further down the road.

A bus has collided with a female cyclist at a junction.

She has been rushed to hospital.

-Just a little sweep to get whatever there is out of the road.

-All right.

With the road closed, Transport For London have dispatched their team

get the network back up and coming.

It's a female cyclist. She's got significant injuries to her legs.

That's as much as we know at this moment in time.

I must have been knocked unconscious, because when I woke up

there was a lady from the ambulance people that was sitting with me.

And I said to her, "What's happening?"

And then I looked down and I saw my legs...

under the front left wheel of the bus.

And I'm looking and I'm... She goes, "No, no, no, don't touch it.

"Don't worry, we're going to get you out of here."

The bus ran over Conchita Williams, crushing one of her legs

and severely damaging the other.

I'm very lucky to be alive. This is what the doctors told me.

I'm very, very lucky to be alive.

But I'll never be walking properly again. They've already told me that.

These sort of things could be avoided.

I know Boris Johnson encourages cycling and all that,

and I agree with him because it's good to cycle.

But it's very, very dangerous, as I found out for myself.

Personally, I think that the roads can be approved a lot.

They should change things, because there are accidents very often.

If everybody behaved

and uses the road sensibly between theirselves, in theory

there should be no problems, but we don't live in an ideal world.

I was driving buses in the '70s,

and the traffic is phenomenal to what it was then.

I wouldn't like to do what they do. I've never seen so many cyclists.

People have just got to be mindful of each other, you know,

just be a little bit more careful out there, I think.

People have got to be less selfish

and be able to recognise that we've got to share the roads.

In 2011, 4,500 cyclists were injured on London's roads.

So on a rain-drenched piece of tarmac in rural Berkshire,

Transport For London has come up with a radical new idea -

to transform the most dangerous junctions.

OK, so what we've got is we've built ourselves a roundabout

in the continental style here, where cyclists and drivers are separated.

On this so-called Dutch roundabout, the cyclists have priority.

Cars must stop for them, not the other way round.

What we don't know, of course,

is whether this will be a viable solution in the UK context,

because the road layout is unfamiliar to UK drivers.

Did you get lost? Do it up, darling. We need bikes, don't we?

But will today's guinea pigs understand this revolutionary

idea from Europe?

I'd anticipate there may be some confusion.

-They've never seen this before.

-There is likely to be confusion.

Yes, indeed.

SHE LAUGHS

Do you turn the handle when you change gears or do you not?

Oh, saddle!

If all goes well,

the plan is to introduce the Dutch roundabouts as early as next year.

Yeah, everyone is out there.

OK, if you'd like to proceed with the first one.

Cyclists will turn right. Starting three, two, one...go.

The cyclists are sent towards the roundabout.

The cars join them.

When they both reach the roundabout, the cars must give way,

allowing the cyclists to cross first.

It does get quite pretty when you have four cars

and four cyclists all circulating together.

But not everyone is sure of where they are supposed to go.

Now where do I go?

Oh, I go up this way, do I?

I don't want to bloody die!

And some cyclists still prefer to ignore the rules completely...

..going the wrong way round the roundabout.

That's confused everyone out there!

It's like being in London, isn't it?

Assisting some of the confused drivers.

One of the cyclists decided to use the orbital in the anticlockwise

direction, as opposed to the usual route.

Personally, that's the quickest route round.

There were no cars there, so that's the way I go.

What are cyclists like in London?

Maniacs! Absolute maniacs.

They come from everywhere. Couldn't describe it. They come out...

They pop out of anywhere, they could, and you wouldn't know it.

You can't account for maniacs. They're everywhere.

They are everywhere.

SIREN WAILS

-There's people on the carriageway, 300 yards.

-Oh, yeah, got it.

I think everyone's noticed in the last ten years how busy

the traffic has become.

It's every driver for themselves.

Sgt Chas Harris has been called to yet another

accident in slow-moving traffic.

Apparently, bad driving by another vehicle which failed to stop.

It appears to be damage only, I don't think anyone's hurt.

So we're going to see if we can get the vehicles moved to a safe

place and get the road reopened as quick as we can.

A car weaving in and out of the traffic has forced

vehicles behind to brake hard, shunting into one another.

They really, really slowed down. I slowed down as well.

He slowed down as well, but I don't think...

Two lanes have been blocked by the collision.

The traffic control centre can only watch

and wait for their police to clear the blockage.

It all has repercussions on the whole network.

Unfortunately, when you get things like this,

you can't really help a great deal.

I'll tell you what to do... Right, I'll tell you what to do.

Come here a minute.

There you go, all yours!

But Chas's roadblock means traffic will now back up

at the rate of a mile a minute.

They are going to tow this vehicle away,

so they're just holding traffic at the moment.

With more cars joining the queue every second,

the priority is to get the road clear.

That's the carriageway that's affected at the moment

because of this accident.

Yeah, I'm guessing it's sort of a couple of miles on the 406 tailbacks.

At least.

Come on, Dave! Come on, Dave!

But there's a problem.

HORN BLARES

Hey! Hey! Now! Do it now!

I think the problem here is that the driver's lost his car keys.

Sometimes when you've got an accident like this,

because there's quite a few vehicles,

as you can see, these vehicles here, despite being in the outside lane,

they start braking so they can actually have a look as well.

I've seen it cause accidents in the opposite direction as well.

It's just human nature.

Well done! Key!

He didn't have these.

The system can barely cope with the circumstances.

Some people would far rather sit in queues than use public transport.

The idea of using public transport doesn't appeal, because public

transport, you've got no control over it, whereas with this...

generally if you find some congestion,

you can choose an alternative route.

Although you can't today.

Congestion is getting longer and longer now.

I'm exactly not sure what it is, but something is wrong with traffic.

That's all I can say.

All clear and the carriageways are all running now, over.

Clearly, something has to be done.

The only solution is to force the traffic to reduce.

No, there's no carrot, there's only a baseball bat, isn't there?

All the carrots have gone.

Keep off our roads, there's not enough room.

HUBBUB

Shall we go in, because it's a 9.30 start?

Some people object to some of the ideas that are being put

forward "I don't want that, it's going to be dreadful."

Well, OK, you might think that, but if we don't do this,

actually the situation is going to be worse.

Yes, it's like anything, it's a challenge.

But it's problem-solving, isn't it?

-SHE CHUCKLES

-Doesn't time fly when you're having fun?

SHE CHUCKLES

TFL?

They can't do anything now, they've got less chance in the future.

I think you can't...

You can't force people to act sensibly or rationally,

so you won't get people out of their cars.

It's not like the technology doesn't exist to do this.

It's not like it's rocket science. It's not rocket science.

People adjust to circumstances. They are rational.

So if you change the circumstances, they'll adjust.

It's chock-a-block round here.

It won't work, because people will just get used to it

as things are changing.

Evolution.

You...get used to it.

Sometimes the plans don't work and sometimes people are just...people!

What can I say?

Are you going to succeed?

Of course we'll succeed, because that's our job.

And there's no point in having a plan that's not going to work, is there?

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