Matchings and T‐joins are fundamental and much‐studied concepts in graph theory and combinatorial optimization. One important application of matchings and T‐joins is in the computation of strong lower bounds for arc routing problems (ARPs). An ARP is a special kind of vehicle routing problem, in which the demands are located along edges or arcs, rather than at nodes. We point out that the literature on applying matchings and T‐joins to ARPs does not fully exploit the structure of real‐life road networks. We propose some ways to exploit this structure. Computational results show significant running time improvements, without deteriorating the quality of the lower bounds.