The M6 motorway is the longest motorway in the United Kingdom. It is located entirely within England, running for just over 230 miles (370 km) from the Midlands to the border with Scotland. It begins at Junction 19 of the M1 and the western end of the A14 at the Catthorpe Interchange, near Rugby before heading north-west. It passes Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Stoke-on-Trent, Preston, Lancaster and Carlisle before terminating at Junction 45 near Gretna. Here, just short of the Scottish border it becomes the A74(M) which continues to Glasgow as the M74. Its busiest sections are between junctions 4 and 10a in the West Midlands, and junctions 16 to 19 in Cheshire; these sections have now been converted to smart motorways.
The M50 motorway is a C-shaped orbital motorway in Dublin and the busiest motorway in Ireland. The current route was built in various sections over the course of 27 years, from 1983 to 2010. It begins at Dublin Port, running northward through the Dublin Port Tunnel and along a portion of the Airport Motorway. It then turns west at its junction with the M1, circling the northern, western and southern suburbs of Dublin, before merging with the M11 at Shankill in South East Dublin. The road forms part of European route E01.
The A57 is a major road in England. It runs east from Liverpool to Lincoln via Warrington, Salford and Manchester, and then through the Pennines over the Snake Pass (between the high moorlands of Bleaklow and Kinder Scout), around the Ladybower Reservoir, through Sheffield and past Worksop. Between Liverpool and Glossop, the road has largely been superseded by the M62, M602 and M67 motorways. Within Manchester a short stretch becomes the Mancunian Way, designated A57(M).
The A14 is a major trunk road in England, running 127 miles (204 km) from Catthorpe Interchange, a major intersection at the southern end of the M6 and junction 19 of the M1 in Leicestershire to the Port of Felixstowe, Suffolk. The road forms part of the unsigned Euroroutes E24 and E30. It is the busiest shipping lane in East Anglia carrying anything from cars to large amounts of cargo between the UK and Mainland Europe.
The island of Ireland, comprising Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, has an extensive network of tens of thousands of kilometres of public roads, usually surfaced. These roads have been developed and modernised over centuries, from trackways suitable only for walkers and horses, to surfaced roads including modern motorways. Driving is on the left-hand side of the road. The major routes were established before Irish independence and consequently take little cognisance of the border other than a change of identification number and street furniture. Northern Ireland has had motorways since 1962, and has a well-developed network of primary, secondary and local routes. The Republic started work on its motorway network in the early 1980s; and historically, the road network there was once somewhat less well developed. However, the Celtic Tiger economic boom and an influx of European Union structural funding, saw national roads and regional roads in the Republic come up to international standard quite quickly. In the mid-1990s, for example, the Republic went from having only a few short sections of motorway to a network of motorways, dual carriageways and other improvements on most major routes as part of a National Development Plan. Road construction in Northern Ireland now tends to proceed at a slower pace than in the Republic, although a number of important bypasses and upgrades to dual carriageway have recently been completed or are about to begin.
The N7 road is a national primary road in Ireland, connecting Limerick and Dublin. The majority of the route is motorway standard and is designated as the M7 motorway. At the Rosbrien interchange in Limerick the route continues as the N18 dual carriageway to Galway, Shannon and Ennis. The road passes through the midlands of Ireland, and acts as a trunk route out of Dublin for the N8 and N9 national primary routes to Cork and Waterford respectively. It forms part of European route E20.
The M50 is a dual two-lane motorway in Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, and Herefordshire, England. Sometimes referred to as the Ross Spur, it is a 22 miles (35 km) connection of the M5 motorway to a point near Ross-on-Wye, where it joins the A40 road continuing westward into Wales. The motorway was fully opened in 1962.
Road signs in the Republic of Ireland do not differ greatly from those used elsewhere in Europe – with the notable exception that hazard or warning signs follow the 'MUTCD' style of a yellow diamond shape. The symbols used on these warning signs do, nevertheless, resemble much more closely those used in the rest of Europe than many of those seen in the United States.
The N81 road is a national secondary road in Ireland, from the M50 motorway to Tullow, County Carlow, north to south. The N81 continues past Tullow for another 8 km to terminate at the village of Closh, County Carlow, where it intersects the N80. The N81 is 76.784 km (47.711 mi) long. The road is a dual carriageway between M50 motorway and west of Tallaght, known as the Tallaght Bypass or Blessington Road. It intersects with the M50 motorway at Junction 11. There are plans to extend the dual carriageway by 5 km (3.1 mi) to the urban boundary.
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms include throughway or thruway and parkway. Some of these may be limited-access highways, although this term can also refer to a class of highways with somewhat less isolation from other traffic.
Road signs in the United Kingdom and in its associated Crown dependencies and overseas territories conform broadly to European design norms, though a number of signs are unique: direction signs omit European route numbers, and road signs generally use the imperial system of units, unlike the rest of Europe. Signs in Wales (Welsh) and parts of Scotland are bilingual.
M1 Pacific Motorway is a 127-kilometre motorway linking Sydney to Newcastle via the Central Coast and Hunter regions of New South Wales. Formerly known but still commonly referred to by both the public and the government as the F3 Freeway, Sydney–Newcastle Freeway, and Sydney–Newcastle Expressway, it is part of the AusLink road corridor between Sydney and Brisbane.
The A453 road was formerly the main trunk road connecting the English cities of Nottingham and Birmingham. However, the middle section of this mainly single-carriageway road has largely been downgraded to B roads or unclassified roads following the construction of the parallel M42-A42 link around 1990. The M42 was originally meant to pass further north than it does, and to join the M1 at Sandiacre in Derbyshire. The M42/A42 does not enter Derbyshire, but instead joins the M1 closer to the A453 junction at Kegworth. The A42 shadows the former A453 from Appleby Magna to Castle Donington. The road historically connected the East Midlands with the West Midlands.
The N32 road was a short national primary road in Ireland running from Junction 3 on the M50, to the Malahide road at Clare Hall. It is effectively a non-motorway section of the M50 Dublin C-Ring, but is only built to primary road status. A short part of the route had motorway restrictions on it as lead to the M1 / M50 interchange, as only motorway traffic can access both routes. In 2013, the road was renumbered as R139.
A roundabout interchange is a type of interchange between a controlled access highway, such as a motorway or freeway, and a minor road. The slip roads to and from the motorway carriageways converge at a single roundabout, which is grade-separated from the motorway lanes with bridges.
In Ireland, the highest category of road is a motorway, indicated by the prefix M followed by a one- or two-digit number. The motorway network consists entirely of motorway-grade dual carriageways and is largely focused upon Dublin. There are also several three-lane motorways, while Ireland's busiest road, the M50, incorporates four-lane, five-lane, and six-lane stretches.
Road signs in Israel are regulated by the Ministry of Transportation in the Division of Transportation Planning, most recently set forth in June 2011.
Road signs in New Zealand are similar to those set by the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals. While New Zealand is not a signatory to the convention, its road signs are generally close in shape and function. New Zealand uses yellow diamond-shaped signs for warnings in common with Australia, the Americas, Ireland, Japan and Thailand. Speed limit signs are a red circle with a white background and the limitation in black, and are in kilometres per hour. There are also some signs unique to New Zealand. Road signs in New Zealand are controlled by NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi and are prescribed in the Land Transport Rule: Traffic Control Devices 2004 and set out in the Traffic Control Devices (TCD) Manual.
A permanently signed detour route is a type of route which is used temporarily during special circumstances. Various areas have developed these systems as part of incident management. The purpose of these routes is to provide a detour in the event that the parent route is impassable, due to either a traffic jams, traffic collision, or road closure. Sometimes these routes are signed as a prefixed or suffixed numbered road, making them a type of special route.
Road signs in Mauritius are standardised traffic signs used in Mauritius according to the Traffic Signs Regulations 1990. They are heavily modelled on road signs in the United Kingdom, since Mauritius is a former British colony and drives on the left.
