Wanting to better understand the purpose of on-ramp lights. Auckland transport say they are activated based on traffic flow, however clearly this isn’t the case in Auckland as they operate all hours of the day, even when minimal traffic on motorways.

I understand the purpose was to assist with the flow of motorway traffic, however in Auckland all this seems to achieve is complete gridlock on all surrounding streets.

I live in Point Chevalier Auckland, due to ramp signals at Western Springs, all surrounding roads from Point Chev, St Lukes and Grey Lynn are gridlocked from 7:30am until 10am each morning. This is regardless of a free flowing North Western motorway.
Improvements to the North Western motorway and water view tunnels have been eliminated due to ramp lights for the ramp past Newton Rd which allows traffic to flow between the North Western motorway and north to SH1.
The lights at this on ramp mean traffic flows back past Western Springs and completely impedes traffic trying to get to the City via Nelson Street, or traffic trying to exit at Newton Rd.

I understand what the ramp lights were designed to achieve but the negatives seem to heavily outweigh the positives.

Keen to hear feedback.