The naked street: Imperial engineers help revitalise famous road in London’s cultural hub

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering takes part in multi-million pound redevelopment of Exhibition Road – News

Thursday 2 October 2008
By Colin Smith

The first stage of a major road redevelopment in the heart of London’s cultural quarter is underway, thanks in part to research undertaken by Imperial College London engineers.

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is working in partnership with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea on research to assess the upgrade of South Kensington’s Exhibition Road.

Exhibition Road is not only home to Imperial, but also to cultural institutions including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum. It is estimated that five million people visit the area each year creating heavy pedestrian and traffic congestion.

In a bid to tackle this overcrowding by 2012, the street will undergo a radical redesign which will see signs and traffic lights removed to make it a shared space for cars and pedestrians.

The overhaul will include improved street lighting, high quality paving, new street furniture including seats, and travelators for an upgraded pedestrian tunnel which links South Kensington tube station with the area’s attractions.

A computer generated image of the redeveloped Exhibition Road (Image courtesy of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea)

The Exhibition Road redesign is based on the ‘naked street’ concept intended to make roads safer. Pedestrians and drivers are forced to share streets, which are stripped of road of signs, markings, and traffic lights, making both more aware of their environment and other users of the street.

The concept was pioneered by the late Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman and examples of his work can be seen in the town of Drachten in the Netherlands which has seen road deaths eliminated in the town centre thanks to the introduction of the naked street scheme.

Professor Michael Bell, lead researcher from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, says this type of streetscape has not been implemented on a large scale in a prominent city centre location before and he believes the success of this project could see naked streetscapes taking hold in the UK and elsewhere. He comments:

“The eyes of the world will be on Exhibition Road. The success of this scheme could have a defining influence on city centre planning everywhere.

“However, there are a lot of unknowns with this project. Pedestrians and cars will be sharing the space with no traffic signs or lights to regulate the flow. We will be monitoring traffic speed, the interaction between vehicles and pedestrians, and the willingness of people to share this new space with vehicles.”

As part of the process, Imperial fourth year civil and environmental engineering undergraduates will carry out three traffic engineering research projects.

Project one will see them carrying out skid resistance research on the granite paving tiles to be used on the road to determine how slippery they will be in different weather conditions for pedestrians and vehicles.

A thirty five square metre granite paving area has been laid behind the gate house at the entrance to Imperial College Road, which leads into the College’s South Kensington campus. The area experiences high volumes of vehicle and pedestrian traffic, enabling researchers to test the durability and reliability of the granite. Data collected will be used to develop new UK skid assessment guidelines for shared spaces.

Project two will see Imperial fourth year undergraduates interviewing pedestrians and other road users before and after the upgrade is complete to assess its impact. Questions could include how pedestrians used the road before the upgrade and the impact the upgrade has had on their ability to cross the road. Information gathered will be fed back to the Royal Borough of Chelsea and Kensington for use in an overall assessment of the project.

Project three will see researchers conducting studies on road usage, before and after the upgrade, with a view to eventually producing design guidelines for shared spaces.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea will carry out the upgrade in conjunction Transport for London and Westminster City Council, which looks after part of the road.

The upgrade partners announced last week (26 September) that £7 million, out of an overall £30 million pound budget will be spent on road works for the first stage of the development which is expected to be completed by 2012.