Road works on motorways in the Stockholm region

Sten FougmanNational Swedish Road Administration

Essingeleden Essingeleden is an urban motor highway, built mainly on bridges, cutting almost through the very heart of Stockholm city. It was built in the 1960-ies and has three or four lanes in each direction. The average traffic through the year is up to 130.000 vehicles a day. Because of that we have to close half the motorway when we are planning to do maintenance and service work on it. Those plans are made during the winter and are decided in cooperation with the Stockholm city council in January each year. Normally we plan for 8 to 10 occasions each year excluded 4 nights in reserve. The time for closure of the road is set to 10 o’clock PM. It is closed up till at 5 AM when all jobs must be finished and all closure devices must be removed. Nearly all traffic in one direction is rerouted through the centre of the city. Heavy and dangerous loads who are not allowed to pass through the reroute are guided in a speed lower than 30 km/h by the working area. They are all collected at the same point and guided with help from 3 small trucks with a sign ”Följ mig” (Follow me). The cost for one night’s closure is about 140.000 SEK (15.000 EURO). There are about 12-15 people involved in the closure work.At those nights we are doing all kinds ofwork for example measuring, inspecting bridges and tunnels, doing asphalt paving, road markings, washing tunnels, rinsing drainage, service of road lights, MCS, garments and other installations.During the last 10 years we have managed to repair all the bridges. Next year we are to open a part of the ring road round the Stockholm city. After that traffic on Essingeleden will be increased. It would have been a catastrophe to repair the bridges then. Even when we started the bridge works there where not possible to close one lane during the day. Mornings and nights under rush hours the ques grow enormously. We sat down in a group meeting and tried to find solutions to the congestion problems. The decision to spread work over more years than we had planned for was made. The working space width was not allowed to increase on the number of lanes. At times during that period we opened the central reserve which consists only of a concrete barrier. Thereafter we placed the left lane on the other side of the central reserve. That lane had barriers on each side and a width of 3 meters. Of course we could not allow trucks to use that lane. The work space had a width of 5 to 5.5 meters and traffic often had to pass on both sides of the working area. It was okay to borrow the shoulders and to shorten the entrance and exit ramps. We tried to narrow the existing lanes a bit, with good results. That gave us the courage to even narrow the lanes which are now in progress. After all the bridge repairs we have gained an extra lane at the sacrifice of the hard shoulders. If there are four lanes in one direction the two to the right are 3.5 m wide and the left ones are 3.0 meters.Short time road works on Essingeleden are made after 10 PM and before 5 AM. The extensions of our MCS system have meant a lot of work at nights. Those works are often made with protection by trucks with TMA (Truck mounted attenuators). As you can see we do not believe in solving all problems with ITS. You should not always choose to do all road works at day time. If there are not space enough for the amount of traffic you can not do wonders with ITS. You can relive some of the pain by giving road users information. The idea of using the DRIPs to inform about how many minutes delays users can count on attracts me a lot.

VMS signs within Stockholm region in the nearest future

This year

Road 73 at jct Gubbängen suth of junction one dynamic route information panel (DRIP) placed in a portal over the road.

Road 229 at jct Gubbängen east of junction DRIP placed on the right hand side of the road.

Road E4E20 at jct Bredäng south of junction DRIP on the right hand side of the road

Road E4 at jct Frösunda south of junction DRIP all ready put up on the right hand side of the road

Road 275 on the Traneberg bridge Variable directional sign (VDS) and a DRIP for traffic hidding east vill be put up in october.

Drip at road E4 southJunction Frösunda

Guidance over

Table of roads and space of time when road works are not allowed

Ramps are included in the time rules below. Road works can be permitted on the hard shoulder, if the shoulder have room for the vehicles involved within the markings, except during rush hours. (Exceptions =only after decision from the road managing authority)

E4 Tpl Hölö - tpl Saltskog östraTowards Sthlm kl. 06.00-08.00From Sthlm kl.

15.30-18.00

E4 Tpl Saltskog östra – tpl Hallunda *Both directions kl. 05.00-21.00

E4 Tpl Hallunda - tpl VästbergaBoth directions kl. 05.00-21.00

E4 Tpl Västberga - tpl Haga södra

Total closure/authority decides

E4 tpl Haga södra - tpl ArlandaBoth directions kl. 05.00-21.00

E4.26 Tpl Norrtull - tpl Haga södraTotal closure/authority decides

E4.65 Tpl Arlanda-Arlanda airportBoth directions kl. 05.00-09.00

kl. 15.30-18.00E18 C länsgräns - Tpl Jakobsberg

Towards Sthlm kl. 05.00-09.00From Sthlm kl. 15.30-18.00

E18 Tpl Jakobsberg - Tpl Arninge

Both direct. kl. 05.00-20.00*=Except for movable bridges