LBP would like to thank the business who kindly reported that the Western Road traffic lights were changing far too quickly and not letting many vehicles onto the A259.

LBP reported this to West Sussex Highways' Traffic Lights Contractor, who met LBP on site on Wednesday morning to find there was indeed a fault with the eastbound traffic sensor. This was immediately resolved, enabling more vehicles to exit Western Road and head towards Shoreham. Whilst on-site, LBP also witness between 15 and 20 vehicles managing to exit westbound onto the A259 within each light change.

The Traffic Lights Contractor explained that we are fortunate, as the lights at this junction have been upgraded to AI technology rather than the old radar system, which had a wire coil in the ground requiring a vehicle to sit directly on the wire coil to initiate the sensor.  

The new AI technology installed now checks all three directions, determines what type of vehicles are queuing and how long the queue is in each direction. This enables the new system to prioritise how long the lighting change stays in place for, up to the maximum time allowed. This ensures that no one should be left sitting in the queue without a chance of entering the A259.

The complication comes when all three directions have long queues, as there is little point in letting too many vehicles out of Western Road, as there will be insufficient space for these vehicles to clear the junction. This has been happening recently due to the roadworks at Park Road in Worthing and those on the A259 in Lancing.

LBP is working with West Sussex Highways to determine if a painted junction box on the A259 would help prevent vehicles from sitting in a queue in the middle of junction, to give more space for vehicles to exit Western Road. A big consideration is whether this could actually reduce the number of vehicles exiting Western Road, as they would need to have clear space the other side of the junction box before exiting.

LBP will continue working on this to see if a painted junction will be beneficial.