Traffic counts in Nairn: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/00066
Date received: 7 January 2018
Date responded: 5 February 2018

Information requested

1. Could you please advise where in the count the vehicles from the A939 travelling to Sainsbury's or the the Nairn Industrial estate (Tom Semple Road) and then returning to the A939 appears in the count? The A939 is a busy road connecting several housing areas and the southern countryside to the Town as well as being the main road from Grantown on Spey.

2. Could you please advise where in the count the vehicles from the B9090 travelling to Sainsbury's or the the Nairn Industrial estate (Tom Semple Road) and then returning to the B9090 appears in the count? The B9090 is the main conduit into the Town for traffic from Cawdor and its environs and is a busy road.

3. Could you please advise where in the count the vehicles from the B9091 travelling to Sainsbury's or the the Nairn Industrial estate (Tom Semple Road) and then returning to the B9091 appears in the count? The B9091 is the main conduit into the Town for traffic from Croy and its environs and can be a busy road.

4. Could you please advise where in the count the vehicles from Lochloy Road travelling to Sainsbury's or the the Nairn Industrial estate (Tom Semple Road) and then returning to Lochloy appears in the count? Adjacent to Lochloy Road, over the last few years, there have been approximately 500 to 700 dwellings built. This has obviously increased the traffic count along the A96, very little of which will cross the automatic counters as it, the traffic, mainly goes to Sainsbury's and then returns.

5. Could you please advise where in the count the vehicles from the anywhere within the Town of Nairn travelling to Sainsbury's or the the Nairn Industrial estate (Tom Semple Road) and then returning to the Town?"

6. I believe all of these vehicles would pass a point approximately 150m east of the A939 junction and would not be included in either of the counts you mention below. If this is indeed the case I would suggest that Traffic Scotland is not in a position to comment with anything like an exact figure on any request appertaining to the A96 within Nairn Town boundaries.

7. The attachment dated 21 November 2017 indicates that Traffic Scotland relies for their data on automatic counters placed well outside the area in question and cannot count a very large volume of traffic that passes that location. Again I ask that Traffic Scotland to review their comments and takes cognisance of the fact for any future comments that the two counters, placed where you indicate, they are, do not provide sufficient information on vehicle movements within the Town for Traffic Scotland to estimate volumes let alone give an exact amount.

Response

In response to questions 1 to 5, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reason why that exception applies is our automatic traffic counters are in the fixed locations noted in our previous response, and only gather information from these points. As such the traffic movements you highlight would not be captured within the traffic count information collected by our automatic counter sites.

Response to questions not under FOISA/EIR:

As previously advised in our acknowledgement email, questions 6 and 7 will not be answered under FOISA/EIR.

The Transport Scotland counter monitors traffic along with another at the west side of Nairn to give daily traffic flows through Nairn.

Junction requirements are specified in the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges as highlighted in my previous letter of 11 October. The correct form of junction for this development is a 'simple T junction'. Transports Scotlands comments would not change even were DfT figures utilised. It should be noted that figures from the DfT counter are anticipated to be high, given they have been extrapolated from from an actual count undertaken in 2008.

Therefore there is no basis for us to review our comments to the Planning Authority.

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