New roadside boxes puzzle drivers in south-west France: what are they?
Some drivers believed installations were new type of speed camera
The boxes were used to record traffic levels and potentially help alleviate congestion issues. Photo for illustrative purposes only
Andrey Mihaylov/Shutterstock
Four aluminium boxes installed beside roads in south-west France at the end of February and now removed have left drivers puzzled.
The boxes were installed in Foix (Ariège) on busy roads, leading some to think they were a new kind of speed camera.
However, they were in fact temporary traffic counters being used to record density of traffic through the town rather than the speed of vehicles.
They monitored vehicle levels for around two weeks.
The information has now been compiled and may be used to make improvements to traffic conditions in the area.
It is the first time the monitors have been used in such a built-up area but they have been installed elsewhere in France before.
They are likely to have been redeployed in the south-west to record traffic levels across other rural and urban areas.
“We installed the counters because we did not have information about driving habits inside Foix centre,” said Ariège’s road director Serge Castillon to La Dépêche (paywall article).
“We wanted to have more precise information about traffic flows [on certain key roads],” he added.
No changes planned despite new figures
Despite collecting the information, departmental authorities do not currently have any plans to make changes for drivers.
The information, whilst useful, “offers only few opportunities given the structural dimension [of the local road network] to be preserved.,” Mr Castillon said.
However, authorities “will study the possibility of repairing Avenue Lérida [the road with the busiest traffic recorded in the study],” depending on technical and financial constraints, he added.
