An experienced driver, Raghav swears by Google maps, memory and pedestrians for destination-based information in the Capital. The 24-year-old, who has been driving at least 20 km daily for the past five years, cannot recall the last time he looked at road signage for directions or information.
“Road signage is either hidden behind dense foliage, obscured behind poles/ wires or mounted at places not easily visible. This, especially in case of signage on speed limit. My licence once got suspended for three months for driving 10 km per hour over the speed limit. At that point, I had been driving on that road for nearly one year. I never spotted any speed limit signage before or after I was penalised. Most signage exist because they must and exist without application of mind,” he said.
However, woes regarding road signage may come to an end by this New Year’s Eve, thanks to Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal’s directions to road-owning agencies to overhaul the existing network of road signage in the Capital.
Spot the difference: A speed-limit sign in a blue square at Kirti Nagar in west Delhi.
Standardised sign
The Public Works Department (PWD) and civic agencies, including the municipal corporations of Delhi, have been given a seemingly ambitious deadline to standardise the road signage that have remained more or less unchanged for close to a decade.
The PWD and civic agencies have been directed to oversee and complete a pan-city road signage maintenance, rectification and installation exercise, last taken up in the run up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games, by the end of the year.
“A survey to ascertain lacunae in road signage already installed on Delhi roads, irrespective of jurisdiction of land-owning agencies, is underway for the first time since the Commonwealth Games. Not just the survey, but installation of new and maintenance of existing road signs is being taken up simultaneously since we do not want to waste time waiting for the survey results. Mr. Baijal has set December 31 as the deadline for completion of the exercise,” said a Delhi government source.
According to the source, apart from installation of both indicative and warning signs where none exist, new boards displaying the identity and contact details of local councillors and MLAs will also be part of the exercise. Efforts are underway to audit the correctness of road details and spelling mistakes in road signs employing languages other than English, such as Hindi and Urdu.
Spot the difference: A speed-limit sign set inside a yellow square on Rafi Marg in central Delhi
Prescribed norms
Over 70% of road signage, traffic signals and road markings in the city do not follow the prescribed norms, a study released on June 28 by the Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE) revealed.
As per the Delhi government records, the total road network in 2015-16 comprised 33,868 lane km. As many as six agencies are responsible for maintaining the Capital’s ever-expanding road network. This network is divided into jurisdictions of the PWD, which has 1,280 km; the South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s 9,408 km; the East Delhi civic body’s 270 km; the North Delhi civic body’s 3,118 km; the New Delhi Municipal Council’s 1,290 km; National Highways with 430 km; the DSIIDC’s 1,434 km; the Delhi Development Authority’s 435 km; other roads which comprise 6,308 km; and land belonging to other agencies.
While the PWD is responsible for roads over 60-metre in width, roads less than 60-m wide broadly fall under the jurisdictions of the civic bodies; other land-owning agencies have different patterns of road ownership depending on notified demarcation.
The study, released by IRTE president Rohit Baluja, showed that of 1,514 signage examined across 14 major stretches in Delhi, 1,098 did not meet the standards prescribed by the Indian Road Congress (IRC).
Regulatory signage
The study revealed that around 93% of regulatory signage, which are meant to be mandatorily followed, violated the prescribed standards of size, installation and shape. The study also found problems with placement, design and colours of signage in case of blue-coloured signage, which are to be used for compulsory messages, and red ones, which are to be used as prohibitory signs. Some prohibitory signs were found cased in blue or yellow boards as “beautification objects”.
“Soon after the study was released, the same presentation was made to senior PWD officials as per a request by the latter. The signage, which was categorised as wrong by the study, includes mainly those which had caution and other warning signs in blue rectangular boards. While some may need to be rectified, a majority comply with prescribed norms,” contended a senior government official.
According to a senior municipal official, the L-G had a month ago ordered review of areas under their jurisdiction where road signage need to be put up. After the final order, a detailed report would be submitted to Raj Niwas by all three corporations.
On the eve of Independence Day, Mr. Baijal had in a meeting convened to review the functioning of the municipal corporations and progress under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan directed the Commissioners of each civic body to install sign boards specifying details of the officer responsible for maintenance of each street to enable creation of a public interface between them and local residents for redressal of issues related to their upkeep.
Contact details
At a similar meet held this past week, the same instructions were given to representatives of government departments.
“The L-G emphasised that the PWD must take up the same exercise of displaying the identities and contact details of PWD officials responsible for maintenance of roads under its jurisdiction,” said an officer who was part of the review.
One of the issues that has been identified so far by the corporations is overlapping of authority at intersections where minor roads meet main roads. According to guidelines, warning signs are supposed to be installed to aid commuters’ safety at such points to warn them of oncoming traffic in case of arterial roads such as Ring Road and Outer Ring Road.
Road signage rules in other countries
United Kingdom
There are three basic types of road signage: signs that give orders, signs that warn and signs that give information. Each type has a different shape. A further guide to the function of a sign is its colour. All triangular signs are red. Blue circles generally give a mandatory instruction, such as ‘turn left’, or indicate a route available only to particular classes of traffic, e.g. buses and cycles. Only red rings or circles tell you what you must not do, e.g. ‘you must not exceed 30 mph’ or ‘no vehicles over the height shown may proceed’. Blue rectangles are used for information signs except on motorways where blue is used for direction signs.Green rectangles are used for direction signs on primary routes. White rectangles are used for direction signs on non-primary routes, or for plates used in combination with warning and regulatory signs. There are a few exceptions to the shape and colour rules, to give certain signs greater prominence. Examples are the ‘stop’ and ‘give way’ signs. The words ‘must’ or ‘must not’, when used in the descriptions that follow, refer to legal requirements that have to be obeyed. Source: UK government site |
The Netherlands
The road signs of the Netherlands are regulated in the Reglement verkeersregels en verkeerstekens (RVV), 1990. Road users are required to observe all road signs giving orders or containing prohibitions. Traffic symbols have priority over traffic rules, inasmuch as such rules are incompatible with said symbols. Temporary traffic symbols on the road surface have priority over other traffic symbols applied in that location to the road surface, inasmuch as such traffic symbols are incompatible. Where traffic symbols indicating a maximum speed indicate a speed higher than those set out in other manuals, the lowest maximum speed indicated applies. If both traffic symbols on signs and electronic signal panels indicate a maximum speed, the lowest maximum speed indicated applies. Traffic lights take precedence over any road signs that govern priority. Traffic signs may be represented on an electronic signal panel. Source: Road traffic signs and regulations in The Netherlands |
Israel
Road signs in Israel are decided by the Ministry of Transportation. They generally use the same pattern of colours, shapes, and symbols as used in Europe and set out in the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals. Signs are written in Hebrew and Arabic, the two official language, and English. The ‘stop’ signs, however, convey their meaning through the depiction of a raised hand. With the exception of the special shapes used for ‘stop’ and ‘yield’ signs (an octagon and a downward-pointing triangle, respectively), signs giving orders are circular and are of two kinds: Prohibitory signs (e.g. ‘no left turn’) take the form of a black-on-white symbol inside a red-bordered circle. Mandatory signs (e.g. ‘turn right only’) bear a white symbol on a blue disk. Source: Traffic Sign Sheet, Ministry of Transportation, July 2012 |
United States
Regulatory signs give instructions to motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists. Signs such as ‘stop’, ‘no parking’, ‘no turns’, and ‘yield’ are considered regulatory signs. Some have special shapes, such as the octagon for the ‘stop’ sign and the x-shape for railroad crossings. Some signs can be localised, such as ‘no parking’, and some are only found in State and local jurisdictions as they are based on State or local laws, such as New York city’s ‘don’t block the box’ signs. These signs are in the R-series of signs in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) and typically in the R-series in most State supplements or State MUTCDs. There are over 16 series of regulatory sign and 25 series of warning signs. Source: MUTCD issued by the Federal Highway Administration of the United States Department of Transportation |
