M42 motorway

M42 motorway in the UK
Basic data
Operator:	Highways Agency
Overall length:	64.3 km (40  mi )
Countries :	England
Course of the road Worcestershire The SOUTH WEST , Worcester , The NORTH WEST Birmingham (W, N & C), Stourbridge (1)  Bromsgrove ( HAS M1) (2)  Birmingham (S) Hopwood Park (at the previous junction) Warwickshire (3)  Birmingham (S), Redditch , Evesham (4)  London , Warwick , Stratford West Midlands (5)  Solihull (6)  Birmingham (SE), NEC & Airport , Coventry (S & W) Warwickshire (7)  The NORTH WEST, Birmingham (E, N & C) ( ABG M5) (7A)  London, Coventry ( ABG M5) (7B)  London, Coventry ( ABG M1) (8th)  Birmingham, (E, N, W & C) (8A)  The NORTH WEST, Lichfield ( ABG M5) (9)  Sutton Coldfield , Lichfield , Coventry , Brownhills (10)  Tamworth , Nuneaton Tamworth (at the previous junction) Leicestershire (11)  Burton-upon-Trent , Coventry, Nuneaton End of the highway Continue on  East Midlands Airport , Nottingham , M1

The M42 motorway ( English for 'Motorway M42') is an approximately 64 km (40 miles) long motorway in England , which forms the southern and eastern part of the motorway ring around Birmingham . It continues towards Nottingham and the M1 motorway . It ends between Tamworth and Ashby-de-la-Zouch at junction 11 and the remaining 15 miles (15 miles) to the M1 are marked as A42 . The section between the M40 and M6 motorways is part of the E 05, which is not signposted in Great Britain .

The first section opened in 1976 and connected the M6 ​​motorway to Birmingham Airport and Solihull . In the 1980s the motorway was extended in both directions: 1985 to Tamworth and Junction 3 near Redditch , 1986 to Appleby Magna (today's AS 11) and Catshill (AS 1), then in 1987 the section to the M5 followed (1987 south-facing lanes at the node there, in 1989 the northern one). The part between Appleby Magna and the M1 was never built; Instead, the A42 was built as a four-lane continuation, which, however, continues the junction numbering of the M42. This deviates from the original route; The current A42 runs directly to East Midlands Airport, while the motorway planned to the west was planned more directly to Nottingham. At the north end there would be, in addition to the end of the M1, a junction with the never built M64 motorway between Castle Donington (M1) and Stoke-on-Trent (M6), now largely replaced by the A50.

Since 2005, a traffic control system called Active Traffic Management , abbreviation ATM, has been in use on the section between junctions 3A and 7 . With the help of sensors and CCTV cameras , traffic control systems can lower the speed limit at peak times and open the hard shoulder for traffic, similar to the A8 or A99 near Munich. The system was chosen as a less costly alternative to full deployment and was the first to be deployed on this stretch in the UK to better manage long-distance, local and feeder traffic to Birmingham Airport and the NEC Exhibition Center during peak hours.

After the successful trial, plans were announced at the end of 2007 to use this system on other polluted motorways.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Pathetic Motorways: M42 Northern Extension
2. ↑ 'Extra lane' plan to be extended, bbc.co.uk, October 25, 2007, accessed October 25, 2011

Web links

Commons : M42 motorway  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• M42 on cbrd.co.uk