Ben Rawding from JCB stresses the importance of new technologies to tackle the labour shortages and attract new talent to the sector.
Today the highways teams within British local authorities face a number of challenges, and as an industry we must do more to support them. The work of a highways operative can often be physically challenging, dangerous and unappreciated. Consequently, we are facing a labour shortage, with a concerning trend towards an aging workforce. An unnamed authority has recently conducted a review to assess exact this – with resulting showing an average age of over 50 years for their highways operatives and a troubling level of absence.
If we hope to tackle the unprecedent backlog faced by our highways teams then we must provide them with the necessary tools to mechanise their repair processes and attract new youthful labour into the many open vacancies. The so called ‘PlayStation generation’ will simply not accept roles if they are expected to risk their personal health, through unnecessary manual handling or risk Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome. This cannot be understated as exposure to hand arm vibration (HAV) can lead to a combination of neurological (nerve), vascular (circulation) and musculoskeletal symptoms, collectively known as hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS), as well as specific diseases such as carpal tunnel syndrome. The Health and Safety Executive have identified HAVS as one of the basic health and safety mistakes crippling British industry. This avoidable risk is something we must eliminate; plastering over the issue with vibration monitoring wrist watches is simply not the answer.
British manufacturers such as JCB have recognised this significant issue and feel the burden of being one of the true engineering giants left in this nation. As a result, the PotholePro was born – an innovation driven by JCB Chairman, Lord Bamford. He tasked the finest engineers within the business to address this ever-growing issue. Since launch in 2021, the PotholePro has been supporting local authorities across the UK by mechanising their repair process, eliminating all HAVS risk and attracting a new generation of talent into the highways industry. Operatives have gone from using jack hammers / circular saws to instead repairing the defects from a zero vibration cabin – the heated air suspension seat has also helped!
It must not be forgotten that HAVS is preventable, but once the damage is done it is permanent. A similar story can be said with unnecessary operatives placed unprotected in a live carriageway. If the preparation of the defect can be completely by a machine, without the operator having to leave the comfort of their cab – then this significantly reduces the risks involved. This is not a move to remove the requirement for labour, but instead diversify the tasks and methodology. The individuals who would previously be working on defect preparation, now focus on reinstatement – attempting to keep pace with the machine leading the process line.
As a result, local authorities have reported that operative job satisfaction has improved as they no longer have to carry cumbersome jack hammers, lift large pieces of spoil surface into their truck. Both of these processes, along with the planning, is undertaken with a single machine. To aid this, they have upskilled their operatives to drive the PotholePro, supported by free of charge training from JCB that includes the full CPCS qualification. The remaining operatives focus on reinstatement – to which they have commented is the “satisfying” element.
Whether it is a PotholePro or alternative machinery, it is essential that we mechanise the highways repair processes, providing an up-skilled labour force with the necessary tools to fix more defects in a safer, economical, and permanent manner. Analysis from authorities such as Stoke-on-Trent City Council has demonstrated that mechanisation can transform the whole highways department. They have repaired over 7-years’ worth of defects in just 12 months. Not only have they repaired significantly more defects, but they have drastically lowered their cost per defect as a result. The workforce is more motivated as the machine has ‘picked up the slack’. In fact, one of their operatives has been using jack hammers for 30 years but has been converted to using the PotholePro. Furthermore, the new work methods have changed the perception of the team and as a result, they are able to attract a younger generation of operatives into their department.
Brooke Wood from dDB Communications emphasises the need for investment in wireless communications to improve roadworker safety.
Every day and night, over 3,000 highways engineers work across the UK’s 670-mile network of motorways and A-roads to keep our roads safe and moving.
However, they are faced with multiple hazards that cause around 20 serious injuries every year (according to DfT figures), and many more moderate injuries.
According to the latest statistics from the UK’s Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) 2019/2020 figures, the number of injuries in construction (including highways engineering) is increasing. Construction is now the third most dangerous industry in the UK, with fatal injury being four times higher compared to all other industries.
Almost half of the fatal injuries to workers over the last five years were accounted for by just two different accident types – falls from a height and being struck by a moving vehicle (both big risks in highways engineering).
The unique challenge in roadworks safety
Although much is being done to improve site safety, highways construction remains immensely challenging. There’s all manner of heavy machinery and equipment in constant motion, often in restrictive areas. If you add in pedestrian traffic and night working, highways engineering and maintenance presents with some unique challenges.
The risk for non-authorised or planned vehicles entering the work site and injuring workers is far greater than in any other industry. In fact, National Highways reported that there were almost 6,500 incidents of vehicle incursions on roadworks sites between October 2017 and October 2020 – 175 per month.
Looking at the total number of road maintenance workers killed or seriously injured whilst at work on the road network, in Great Britain (since 2010), there’s been a steady year-on-year increase according to the DfT figures. In a Freedom of Information request made on 10 March 2020, the DfT confirmed that between 2010 and 2018, there had been 10 roadworkers fatally injured and 76 seriously injured.
Beyond improving pedestrian driver awareness, roadworker safety, and onsite guidance, what more can be done?
Learning from railway engineering
Improvements to highways worker safety could be made by replicating similar wireless communications solutions seen in railway engineering.
In 2011, Network Rail mandated that all rail construction workers use duplex wireless systems to improve communications and worker safety.
If you are wondering what duplex wireless systems are, the best way to explain their use is by comparing them to back-to-back radios.
Back-to-back radios, while fantastic pieces of equipment, have limited use in high-traffic, high noise environments since only one person can talk at a time and everyone is forced to listen. If an incident were to occur away from the person talking, until they stopped transmitting, no one else can be advised of a potential hazard or threat. Duplex communications resolve this problem by allowing multiple users to talk and listen at the same time.
Some duplex systems, allow up to 16 users to communicate at the same time with headsets that are adapted for each roadworker’s task. For example, one engineer may require maximum situational awareness where their colleague may require hearing protection with closed ear domes.
Offering an uninterrupted wireless range of up to 100 metres for two-users and 500 metres for three or more users, duplex wireless systems are ideal for:
Improving efficiency between trades (to get the job done quicker)
Managing onsite traffic
As with railway engineering, highways engineers have the additional issue of transmission blind spots. This could be due to any number of things. It could be a tunnel, a corner or a long distance. Duplex wireless systems can offer a solution as they can be adapted to meet these challenges.
Likewise, back-to-back radios, which integrate with duplex wireless systems, can be extended by using the mobile phone architecture, with ranges of up to 30 miles.
Controlling unauthorised vehicles
Using wireless radio frequency (RF) technology, worksite entrance points can also be monitored, with workers instantly alerted to any intrusion, whether a vehicle or a person. If an intrusion occurs, an alarm sounds within the roadworker’s headset and enables them to respond in line with site guidance.
Where do you start with improving onsite communications?
There are hundreds of applications for wireless communications in highways engineering. The best piece of advice though, is to speak directly with the manufacturer who should explore your communication challenge before recommending the most practical solution.
Hannah Cook at GreenBlue Urban emphasises the importance of green infrastructure within the road network as towns and cities across the UK expand.
With increasing urbanisation of our towns and cities, the pressure to plant trees is huge.
Priorities are under challenge, our road systems, with increasing traffic, need to provide safe pedestrian access suitable for all, and the plethora of below ground constraints create almost impossible hurdles to overcome.
Only as we give our green infrastructure some sort of parity with grey infrastructure in our urban conurbations, will we truly build resilience and create sustainable cities for future generations.
GreenBlue Urban encourage design with canopy cover in mind, as mature trees have multiple benefits; promoting a healthy, biodiverse, and the sustainable city which includes sequestering carbon, mitigating the effects of climate change, and improving our sense of biophilia minimising stress.
In 2015, a collaboration between Highways England, Keir, Treeconomics, Evans Associates, Davey and Forest research published an i-tree eco survey stating that trees planted in South West Region Highways network remove 29 tonnes of pollutants every year.
GreenBlue Urban worked closely with Glasgow City Highways and Civic Engineers on the scheme: Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. This project was implemented due to the considerable decline in the road’s retailers, so renovation to consolidate the main shopping centre to heart of the city, encouraging customers to visit the shops in person was put into action.
The ‘Green Avenues Plan’ was the driving force to increase canopy cover, with Sauchiehall Street being the perfect pilot to highlight how green infrastructure can be used to change human behaviour, challenging the dominance of vehicles in the public realm.
Twenty-eight specimen trees have been planted in full GreenBlue Urban ArborSystem tree pits provide a strong visual segregation between vehicles and pedestrians/cyclists. Designed as “linked” they provide maximum rooting space in uncompacted soil, giving the trees the best opportunity of attaining species potential.
Beneath the streets lie a labyrinth of interconnected utilities, foundations, and other construction constraints. Many of these constraints are not anticipated, as much of the infrastructure below ground is not well documented.
Guidelines given in the DMRB (Design Manual for Roads and Bridges) HD24 HD26: Pavement Design and Construction, state that the requirement of the road design and surface layer works are to be based principally on a traffic assessment figures. These are expressed in terms of million standards (80kN) axle loads (msa) carried during the design life of the construction. This traffic loading together with the quality of the subgrade dictates the selection of the surfacing and depth of a road pavement required.
The clue to successful tree planting in and around utilities is collaboration and understanding the risks to the utility provider. Trees are not inherently damaging, but they are exploitive of rooting volume, and tend to find the easiest route to nutrient, water, and air. When the initial planting zone has become insufficient for the tree health, the tree roots will explore further areas in search of these items, and in doing so can find small fissures or holes in service ducts and drains.
The complexity of utility runs beneath the paving means that the GreenBlue soil cell system; Rootspace can intertwine around these features, directing the roots into the uncompacted soil chambers. Joining the tree pits beneath ground allows the soil volumes to be reduced, as the trees share the available nutrients and become more resilient than standalone trees would.
The Challenges:
We often receive the question: Can you access the tree pits if required after installation? If utilities need to be accessed in the case of an emergency, the contractor simply must excavate to the top of the cell system, remove the RootSpace Lids and hand dig or vacuum excavate through the rooting zone to access the service.
Footway constrictions can also be an ongoing issue. GreenBlue advise to use ReRoot Barrier away from these potential issues and into the Cells below the road, allowing root penetration into optimum soil conditions.
Adoption of tree planting is a complicated issue, and many local authorities find it hard to maintain the balance between efficiently managing their scant resources and greening up urban areas. Commuted sums vary so it is advisable to be clear from the outset.
Well designed highways networks can deliver economic, social and wellbeing benefits, tree pits for the hard landscape are very much embedded within the narrative of green, blue, biodiverse thoroughfares through the effective use of green infrastructure.
New tree planting is required if we are to ensure a continuum of canopy cover for future generations. Urban tree planting needs emphasis on quality rather than quantity.
Councillor Duncan Enright, Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Travel and Development Strategy, looks at the future of transport in the county
Cllr Duncan Enright, Oxfordshire County council’s Cabinet Member for Travel and Development Strategy
Oxford and Oxfordshire weren’t built for motorised transport. Our historic county deserves an excellent travel network that connects us, helps businesses and jobs, gives access to opportunity, while tackling the climate and cost of living crises. That is what we are working to deliver, and we need your help and insight.
Since coming to power in May 2021, we’ve proposed steps to address the climate emergency and create a transport network that works for everyone.
We want residents and visitors to get around easily for work, education, daily living, and to connect families and friends. Our priority is to invest in an inclusive, integrated, and sustainable transport network while moving to zero carbon.
Most of us already contend with congestion and pollution. Cyclists and pedestrians are put at risk by sharing space with vehicles. If we carry on as we are while our population grows, we face gridlock. We must find ways for those who can to choose to travel on foot and bike, and use buses, taxis and trains (and share cars), to help free up our roads while we address the climate emergency and health issues by reducing emissions.
We are also committed to dealing with inequality. Cycling and walking are good ways to live healthily. But parts of the county and city are poorly served by public transport or lack safe connected cycle paths. Alternatives to cars must be affordable and work for everyone. Some people, and not just those with blue badges, need more help getting around, and we must plan for that too.
The County Council can’t do this alone. The city of Oxford, other local authorities and the county need to work together: the county needs access to its beloved city, and the city needs the county not to clog up its roads.
Our approach is to invest and encourage people to change the way they travel with a series of bold measures.
We are putting the interests of people with disabilities and those travelling on foot and bicycle first, providing better bus services, supporting taxis, and working to expand railways. We will amend existing policies, and with public help we are writing a radical Local Transport and Connectivity Plan to support this change.
Our planning strategy will evolve so new housing developments offer alternatives to the car – meaning residents need fewer parking spaces, have more green areas, and many can live on estates where car ownership isn’t necessary.
We must use data to understand where and when people want to travel so we make smarter choices about how to avoid traffic jams and offer smart ticketing on public transport. It will also allow us to provide dashboards on air pollution and local effects of the climate emergency.
We are determined not to build roads which will simply encourage more vehicle movements and reduce the space for living healthy. However, we have inherited some schemes bound up with new housing which need careful and thoughtful design and construction, not least to support new bus routes and cycle lanes. We also need to adapt existing roads to be better, faster routes for buses and bikes.
We want to gradually reduce parking spaces in Oxford and encourage others to do so, for instance through a workplace parking levy (which will be invested to provide quick and easy alternatives for commuters). Large employers like the universities are already working on this basis.
E-scooters, e-bikes and community buses can be used for the last few miles of journeys from out-of-town car parks. Motorcycles also offer an efficient alternative to cars and are part of our planning.
We’ve created a zero emission zone in Oxford, with plans to expand to the whole city centre and beyond, charging polluting vehicles as we move to all-electric transport.
There will be a focus on public transport, including replacing diesel buses with electric ones in Oxford from 2023, and introducing new lanes and bus priority measures to give peak priority in Oxford. There is one of these measures on Oxford High Street already, and another slightly different one on Botley Road. We will support community buses to connect people in our rural towns and villages. To achieve this, we will work in close partnership with the bus companies.
Our roads and urban environment also need to become safer and cleaner for people on foot, bikes, and mobility scooters. We have conducted experiments to cut through-traffic in our residential streets to improve air quality and quality of life and will review what we have learned. Reducing through-traffic in town centre streets can also help businesses operate outdoors and increase the attractiveness of our high streets for shoppers.
‘School Streets’ trials have also worked well in some places. More are planned to encourage children and families to walk or cycle to school.
We want to build dedicated and segregated cycle lanes, connect existing ones into a safer network along longer routes, and plug gaps in our towns and city. We also aim to modify existing and new road layouts to make them safe for cyclists and will look at establishing new links between home and workplaces – particularly for buses and bikes where the science jobs of the future are being created.
Bold changes aren’t easy but doing nothing isn’t an option. The prize is a city and county where we can all get around easily and affordably, in a way that is healthy and clean and does not damage our planet. Please share your ideas as we all travel on this journey to a cleaner, healthier, fairer Oxfordshire.
Cllr Enright is a member of the Fair Deal Alliance. It is made up of Labour & Cooperative, Liberal Democrat and Green councillors, and is the first administration without Conservatives since inception in 1889
Sonya Byers, CEO of Women in Transport, outlines the gender bias and stereotyping still present in the transport sector which limits women’s progression
Sonya Byers, CEO, Women in Transport
Transport is a wonderful sector to be a part of – full of opportunity, innovation and great people.
Our research into gender perceptions of working in transport found that over 80% of women felt proud to work in the transport industry.
So why do we need a network like Women in Transport that supports women working in the sector?
Perception is an issue – particularly when we look at where we are with gender balance.
In 2016, the Transport Infrastructure Skills Strategy set an ambition to reach gender parity in the transport workforce with the UK population by 2030.
Women make up 51% of the UK population but account for just 20% of the transport workforce. Transport is about connecting people and places, but this unequal representation means we are missing out on the valuable experiences, views and knowledge of women. Considering these in our decision-making as standard would help us shape our systems and places so that they are designed to serve the different people that use them.
Our 2021 research for the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Women in Transport found that women still experience significant barriers to progression and their perception of their experience in work is different to that of men:
75% of women felt it was easier for men to progress than women
82% of women felt unconscious bias is an issue
70% of women had experienced discriminatory behaviour or language
Surely what we want as a sector is for people to feel welcome and included and to be our biggest advocates to attract new talent.
The DfT’s ‘Enhancing equality, diversity and inclusion for transport infrastructure skills’ report also published in 2021 reinforces how bias and stereotyping limit women’s progression.
A recent whitepaper from the Diamond EU project made recommendations for attracting more women into transport including embedding flexible working practices for men and women, more women in senior roles and school engagement. There was a commonly reported theme that ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’ and specific women in transport groups and educational events were cited as examples of support received that positively impact women employees and a more equal gender balance in the industry.
So in 2022, the reason why Women in Transport and other similar organisations still exist is to provide a safe space for our members to thrive. A space where they can find common ground, network with peers, and support and progress their careers in a sector full of opportunity.
We welcomed the new government consultation to help better understand the future skills needed to boost diversity, plug the skills gap and promote careers across the industry. We are also excited to see the launch of the DfT’s Transport Employment and Skills Taskforce (TEST), announced during National Apprentice Week 2022, led by our Patron Rachel Skinner CBE, and we look forward to supporting the taskforce.
As Women in Transport, we continue to support our women members with professional development, networking opportunities and mentoring. We work collaboratively with partners to promote equality, diversity and inclusion through the APPG for Women in Transport and our Diversity and Inclusion Bus Group
Our Lead development programme launched last April and has supported more than 45 women from almost 20 different transport organisations to date. Together, these women are building a legacy, alumnae network to support each other’s careers – they will empower future generations of women leaders in transport just by being seen and we’re incredibly proud to be a small part of their journey.
And as long as we’re needed, we will be here to support them! Our network is open to anyone working in transport – men and women – and we will be at Highways UK in November so do come along and have a chat in person.
Women in Transport are an official partner of Highways UK, visit them on their stand C24 on 2-3 November at NEC in Birmingham.
Richard Dilks, Chief Executive at CoMoUK, explains how mobility hubs and shared transport schemes can play a significant role in the UK’s journey to Net Zero by cutting congestion and carbon emissions while improving air quality and the nation’s health.
Richard Dilks, Chief Executive at CoMoUK
At Collaborative Mobility UK (CoMoUK), we want to build on the strong growth in the shared transport sector to further extend its ability to deliver low carbon, lower cost sustainable transport options across the UK.
This is part of reducing dependency on privately-owned cars which are generally inefficiently used, costly to own or lease, take up a lot of space and are the major component of transport emissions in the UK.
Transport is in turn this country’s largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, producing more than a quarter of the UK’s total emissions. Its emissions have not fallen in a generation.
We can’t hope to meet our climate change targets without greater use of shared transport as part of a broader sustainable transport package of public transport and active travel too.
That’s why we would like to see car clubs, bike sharing, shared rides and demand responsive transport spread across rural, island, suburban and urban areas.
Part of this shift can come from mobility hubs, which have been hugely successful in transforming the lives of people and businesses in parts of Europe.
Mobility hubs bring public transport together with walking and cycling options and shared transport.
While there is no ‘one size fits all’ design, they can include community facilities such as cafés, fitness areas, green space, package collection points, Wi-Fi and phone charging, real-time journey planning information, walking areas and disabled access.
We believe these hubs can contribute to the goal of creating ‘20 minute neighbourhoods’, which enable people to live, learn and meet their needs within a 20 minute walk of their home.
They are common in a number of comparator countries such as Germany, Austria, Belgium and Norway as well as in many US cities.
Both the UK and Scottish governments are keen on these hubs, and the first CoMoUK -accredited one has already opened in a suburb of London and with plans underway for several in Scotland.
We believe the creation of more mobility hubs around the UK can help with meeting climate change targets, while also bringing energy and excitement to urban centres and providing new opportunities and connectivity for some of the country’s most deprived areas.
Benefits include reducing the dominance of private car use and the associated problems of congestion, carbon emissions, poor air quality and social exclusion.
They also offer convenience and choice with the possibility of seamless switches and improved links between different layers of transport.
Mobility hubs can lead to improved access for vulnerable users and can help to improve overall public transport networks by plugging gaps in connections.
Before the Covid pandemic, over two thirds of Scotland’s commuters drove to work by car or van, and 66 per cent of all car journeys in Scotland were single occupancy trips.
Government figures for England also suggest that 62 per cent of all car or van journeys were made by a lone driver in 2019, rising to 89 per cent for commuting journeys.
Persuading the public to transition from petrol and diesel cars to electric alternatives has long been talked up as a silver bullet.
But while they may be better for the environment, they are no less guilty of causing congestion and the manufacturing process is just as environmentally unfriendly.
Instead, we would like to see greater use of bike hire schemes, car clubs, ride sharing and demand responsive transport.
In a recent survey by CoMoUK, more than half of users of bike share schemes said they would have made their last trip by car or taxi if the option to hire a bike had not been available.
Meanwhile, our research finds that the number of people signed up to car clubs in Scotland is now at an all time high of 38,000.
To increase vehicle occupancy, we believe employers and large organisations can do more to incentivise ride sharing and carpooling for commuting journeys and business trips – particularly as employees begin to return to workplaces as Covid restrictions are lifted.
Richard Dilks is chief executive of the UK’s national shared transport charity Collaborative Mobility UK (CoMoUK). It was established in 1999 and is dedicated to the public benefit of shared transport such as shared cars, bikes, e-scooters and rides.
Richard is speaking at Highways UK on 2-3 November about how mobility hubs and shared transport schemes can play a significant role in the UK’s journey to Net Zero
Steve Perkins, Managing Director at Steve Perkins Associates, unpacks the big picture of workplace health and argues the ‘system’ for protecting worker health is flawed, particularly in the world of construction.
“What gets measured gets managed”
So said Peter Drucker, the well-known management thinker. And it’s generally true. Unfortunately when it comes to protecting the physical health of our workers from exposures that cause disease and death, we tend to count the corpses rather than focus on controlling the exposures that produce them.
And even then, that counting only goes on at national level in the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) annual statistics. Did you know that the construction sector in Great Britain is responsible for 3,500 occupational cancer deaths, plus 5,500 new cases of occupational cancer each year? And at any one time there are some 81,000 construction workers with work-related ill-health[1] . When you think that the Highways sector accounts for about 30% of all construction activity that’s potentially a lot of occupational cancer caused by highways work.
So what are we measuring when it comes to health protection?
Or maybe a more pertinent question is how do our current health, safety and wellbeing metrics impact on health protection?
Well, numbers of mental health first aiders or champions is certainly important, but wellbeing-related measures like that won’t have any impact on reducing the physical, chemical or biological workplace exposures that cause the occupational diseases we’re discussing. To put it bluntly, no amount of mindfulness will stop you get silicosis or noise induced hearing loss! (We’ll come to how wellbeing, occupational health and occupational hygiene work in relation to one another in a moment.)
And then there’s LTI, LTA, AFR… (otherwise known as ‘Looking Good Indices’.) All of which focus on accidents, not ill-health. It could be argued that even in terms of preventing accidents these metrics are not a lot of help due to their lagging nature. They don’t reveal anything about what is being done now to reduce workplace risk and so decrease the likelihood of future accidents. But I digress; that’s a different article.
Well surely then, RIDDOR is the answer when it comes to health metrics and we all count RIDDOR reportable diseases. Unfortunately RIDDOR is to health protection what AFR’s are to accident prevention – seriously lagging! The key thing about the most serious occupational diseases is that they are ‘long latency’ i.e. it can take years if not decades for many of them to develop. So, by the time the disease manifests, the damage is done and, because there are no cures for these diseases, it’s too late to stop them progressing.
The BIG picture of workplace health
I mentioned earlier that we’d look at how wellbeing, occupational health and occupational hygiene work in relation to one another. There are 3 broad, but overlapping dimensions to workplace health.
The classic understanding of health at work comes under the banner of Occupational Health. This is the clinical arena that’s all about managing the health of workers as it is today. It covers the work of doctors and nurses on things like fitness for work, medicals and health surveillance.
Wellbeing is the second dimension of health at work. This is primarily about encouraging individuals to make healthy lifestyle choices and has benefits for both employees and employers.
The third dimension of health at work is Occupational Hygiene. This is all about protecting people from workplace health risks. These are the entirely preventable risks the workplace itself creates, which are regulated by the HASAWA 1974. Preventing ill-health is all about controlling exposures; it’s not about clinical treatment or health promotion. It’s about protection. Occupational Hygienists are highly qualified applied scientists who deal with the anticipation, recognition, evaluation and control of workplace health risks. Theirs is a cross-cutting discipline encompassing aspects of physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, ergonomics, toxicology and engineering.
Is health, safety and wellbeing really protecting our worker’s health?
Let’s return to our original question. Someone once said, “the system you have is perfectly designed to give you the results you’re getting”. If the HSE’s statistics are anything to go by the ‘system’ for protecting worker health is pretty dysfunctional, particularly in our world of construction.
Unfortunately these levels of serious occupational disease and death reported by HSE have been going on for decades and they’re generally not reducing. It seems to me that it’s hard to conclude anything other than the answer to our original questions is a resounding ‘NO’. By any outcome measure, at an industry level, health, safety and wellbeing is not really protecting our worker’s health.
Good practice in highways worker health protection
That’s that not to say there aren’t pockets of good practice, and at the Highways UK show in November I’ll be unpacking some great examples from Connect Plus’s award-winning Healthier Highways initiative on the M25. You may be wondering by now what should we be measuring if we want to really protect our worker’s health? Remember – it’s all about reducing exposures. Come along in November to find out more!
Andy Peart outlines how local authorities can utilise tech and data to inform their highways asset management decisions and bring in a new environmental dimension.
The science of strategic highways asset management is going through seismic change. Historically, the approach focused on gauging the financial impact of different road repair and maintenance decisions. Local authorities had to weigh up whether it made sense to save money at the outset by using a less expensive surface treatment, only to have to spend more down the line on road repairs or additional surface dressings. On the other hand, they had to assess whether using more durable but expensive materials from the word go would ultimately prove an economically-sounder decision.
This model is now rapidly evolving. There are a range of drivers. Residents are much more attuned to the importance of sustainable construction. They care about the highways development and maintenance process being environmentally efficient. They want the carbon footprint generated across the highways lifecycle to be kept to a minimum. But they also want councils to take a broader perspective and think about how decisions made about highways management and maintenance might impact the wider community.
Government is also becoming more cogniscent of environmental factors in the way it allocates funding to local authority highways departments. Questions relating to sustainability have recently been included for the first time in the Local Highways Maintenance Incentive Fund.
The impact of technological advances
To meet these kinds of drivers, new predictive analytics technology is now coming on stream, allowing local authorities to base highways management and maintenance decisions on their impact on the wellbeing of residents and the local economy and environment, as well as financial cost and road condition. Thanks to these advances, the authorities can move beyond a pure focus on road conditions to thinking much more about where roads are located, who is using them and what the overall environmental impact of their construction and maintenance will be.
Part of this may be around the ability to analyse where pinch points on the network are causing cars to idle at junctions for long periods of time. Part of it may be around better understanding how infrastructure decisions impact the quality of life in specific neighbourhoods: including projected job creation, support for economic growth, environmental impact, and changes in levels of access to important public resources such as hospitals and schools.
However, a key element of the equation will inevitably be around the treatment used on the surface of the road. Many local authorities are working with larger contractors. The local authority effectively manages the highway while the contractors go out and lay the tarmac, and, increasingly today as they are doing that, collect information about temperature and CO2 emissions from the scheme. Typically, they will have specifications around different treatments.
These might include assigning a carbon or NOx output to a treatment that can then get added to the overall lifecycle model. It is another example that demonstrates how highways lifecycle planning is becoming ever greener today.
Many councils are still in the early stages of trying to roll put this kind of approach and currently, they are still trying to understand what their baseline is. They need the ability to model these kinds of factors quickly in order to be able to support the decision-making process on new road builds. It may be a nuanced final decision if, for example, one choice may be more expensive financially but also likely to deliver lower carbon output over time compared to the alternatives.
Flexibility of choice
The aim of any asset management solution in this space is not to drive the council’s end decision in any specific direction, it is more around giving local authorities the ability to run different scenarios and then put those options in front of their senior decision-makers. This need to be done as part of an approach which effectively says – ultimately it your decision but we are giving you the best available information to make it.’
These are complex judgements, after all. Low carbon treatments for highways assets are often cheap to invest in. They are therefore attractive to local authorities who want to go ahead quickly with an environmentally-friendly approach. However, if the council is going to have to re-apply the treatment every year, it is going to end up costing more and it is going to output more carbon. So authorities really need to look beyond short-term gains. In this case, for example, they need to consider whether it might be better to stick to the original road surface, which may be higher carbon at the outset but require much less carbon to maintain over a 30-year lifecycle.
To properly assess that decision, local authorities will need to have the right data available to them, together with the relevant skills to assess that data and the ability to spend time on it and deliver it. Most importantly they will need the right asset management software solution delivered by a vendor they can trust and that can also deliver expert consultancy on top. If they get that formula right, to broaden the overall picture that informs their highways asset management decisions, including bringing a new environmental dimension into it.
Andy is a marketing leader and business strategist with 30+ years’ experience in the AI and B2B software sector. Working with connected asset management leader, Yotta, Andy heads their marketing function and helps ensure the company’s innovative software drives business benefit for its 200+ public and private sector customers. www.weareyotta.com
Yotta are exhibiting once again at Highways UK this year on 2-3 November at the NEC in Birmingham on stand I4
Claire Walters, chief executive of Bus Users UK, emphasises the importance of proper planning and infrastructure to prioritise public, shared and active transport to meet sustainability targets.
The electrification of vehicles has become the key focus of government policy as the solution to transport decarbonisation in the war on climate change. The appeal, of course, is that it can be achieved without upsetting car-driving voters. But by focusing on electric vehicles, are we missing an opportunity to transform our roads and transport infrastructure, not just for private car users but for everyone?
It’s broadly accepted that electric vehicles have a lower carbon footprint over the course of their lifetime than traditional cars, but the picture is more nuanced than headlines might suggest. The rechargeable, lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars make them more energy-intensive to manufacture and charging them is largely reliant on the national grid which is still over 40% dependent on fossil fuels. The pollution from tyre and brake wear can be many times greater than exhaust emissions and the current approach to end-of-life battery disposal is less than sustainable.
In the long-term, electric vehicles will offer a more climate-friendly alternative to the internal combustion engine but there remains an elephant in the room – or rather an elephant currently blocking all major roads in our town and city centres: congestion.
Congestion not only increases pollution of both air and noise, it hampers the economic growth so vital to our post-pandemic recovery. Getting people out of private cars and onto public, shared and active travel modes is the only effective and sustainable way to tackle pollution and congestion, improving our roads not just for the people who use them but for those who live and work alongside them. Public Health England attributes up to 36,000 deaths per year in the UK to respiratory disease, lung cancer and cardiovascular illness as a direct result of air pollution. And it’s not just our health that is being compromised. The Global Traffic Scorecard for pre-Covid 2019 showed that, on average, UK road users wasted 115 hours each year in congestion (149 hours in London). That’s over two average working weeks spent sitting in traffic, at a total cost to the economy of £6.9 billion.
According to the Government’s National Bus Strategy, buses are the ‘easiest, cheapest and quickest’ way to improve transport and with one double decker bus able to take up to 75 cars off the road, it’s easy to see why. With the climate crisis so high on the agenda and the personal and economic costs of congestion and pollution growing, we need to change our thinking. Rather than switching people from one form of private transport to another, we need to actively discourage private car use and focus instead on public, shared and active travel. Getting people out of private cars creates a virtuous circle, as reducing the number of cars on our roads improves road safety and speeds up journey times for alternative forms of transport making them more reliable and, given their cost, more attractive to everyone, including private car users.
Public and active travel improves the health and wellbeing of the people who use it. It also reduces the financial burdens on the rest of society associated with poor health and social exclusion. A new report from the Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA) puts the health cost of England’s most deprived communities at nearly £30 billion annually while the Mental Health Foundation, London School of Economics and Political Science estimates the cost of poor mental health in the UK to be nearly £120 billion a year. There is a direct correlation between access to transport, health and deprivation so as well as tackling climate change and congestion, sustainable public and active travel have a vital role to play in the levelling-up agenda. Good public transport reduces isolation and loneliness and improves access to life’s opportunities through education, employment, social and leisure activities and, of course, health services.
The current focus on electric vehicles will not only contribute to congestion, noise pollution and, certainly in the short-term, air pollution, but risks widening the wealth gap between those who can afford a private electric vehicle and those who can’t. Policies like tolls and congestion charges widen the gap still further.
But whether you can afford the expense or not, without proper planning and infrastructure to prioritise public, shared and active transport, you will still be wasting hours of your time sitting in the same gridlocked traffic as the rest of us.
About Bus Users
Bus Users campaigns for inclusive, accessible transport. We are the only approved Alternative Dispute Resolution Body for the bus and coach industry and the designated body for handling complaints under the Passenger Rights in Bus and Coach Legislation. We are also part of a Sustainable Transport Alliance, a group working to promote the benefits of public, shared and active travel.
Alongside our complaints work we investigate and monitor services and work with operators and transport providers to improve services for everyone. We run events, carry out research, respond to consultations, speak at government select committees and take part in industry events to make sure the voice of the passenger is heard.
Bus Users UK Charitable Trust Ltd is a registered charity (1178677 and SC049144) and a Company Limited by Guarantee (04635458).
Claire Walters, Chief Executive of Bus Users UK, will be speaking at Highways UK on 2-3 November at the NEC in Birmingham
David Metz, honorary professor at the UCL Centre for Transport Studies, outlines his suggested actions to inform future investment decisions when looking ahead to Road Investment Strategy (RIS3)
The Department for Transport has begun to plan its third Road Investment Strategy (RIS3), the investment programme for the Strategic Road Network (SRN) for 2025-2030. There are a number of headwinds for road investment, in particular safety concerns from the loss of the hard shoulder of smart motorways, and the Net Zero decarbonisation objective.
There is also a question about the economic benefits of adding capacity to major roads. Recent cases of post-opening evaluation of smart motorway schemes showed gross discrepancies between traffic forecasts and projected economic benefits. The M25 Junctions 23-27 all-lane running scheme yielded reduced travel times one year after opening compared with before, but this time saving was negated by year two on account of unanticipated growth in traffic volumes. The M1 J10-13 dynamic hard shoulder running scheme generated lower speeds five years after opening compared with before, resulting in a negative benefit-cost ratio. These findings are consistent with the maxim that we can’t build our way out of congestion, which we know from experience to be generally true.
Inspection of the reports of the traffic and economic modelling of these and other road investments shows substantial projected economic benefits from travel time savings to business users. There are also time savings to local users, commuters and others, but these are entirely offset by increased vehicle operating costs – as motorists reroute to the motorway to save a few minutes travel time at the expense of increased fuel costs.
I suspect that this local rerouting is under-estimated in the traffic modelling generally. While long distance users of a motorway would be unlikely to change their route on account of local congestion, local users have the flexibility to do so. The wide adoption of ‘digital navigation’ (satnav location + digital maps + routing algorithms) that recommends shortest journey time routes increases the opportunities for local users to take advantage of increased motorway capacity. The screenshot from Google Maps illustrates the scope for rerouting of local traffic in the vicinity of the M25 J-23-27 smart motorway scheme.
Our understanding is limited because the evaluation of the outcome of a road scheme is based on monitoring total traffic volumes and speeds, whereas the modelling estimates the benefits to different classes of road user – cars, LGVs, HGVs, business users, non-business commuters and other local users. We could well have outcomes for which total traffic was exactly as forecast but where the composition was quite different from that projected, with more local trips at nil economic benefit displacing the intended longer distance business users, resulting in poor value for money.
Because we do not understand how the composition of traffic changes after a scheme is opened, we are not able to better calibrate our models to improve future traffic forecasts.
More generally, the widespread adoption of digital navigation is changing how the road network is used. The Department for Transport has substantially revised upwards its estimates of traffic on minor roads. This is most likely due to digital navigation making minor routes accessible to those without local knowledge, with the main impact adjacent to congested major roads where a minor road offers an alternative.
The impact of digital navigation has been strangely neglected by road authorities, transport analysts, practitioners, policy makers and researchers. The providers of digital navigation are secretive about the algorithms they use and their performance. The overall effect is to increase the capacity of the road network, but at the cost of more traffic on minor roads that are well suited to active travel. The lack of liaison between providers of navigation services and road authorities means that we are missing opportunities to improve outcomes for road users while reducing environmental harms, in particular when the network is under greatest stress on account of peak traffic volumes or major incidents.
So, in preparation for RIS3, I suggest actions to be initiated to inform future investment decisions:
Develop a more granular methodology for evaluation of road scheme outcomes, to understand the use made of additional capacity by local users.
Develop a better understanding of the impact of digital navigation on traffic patterns, to improve both modelling and network operations.
The roads sector needs to shift its focus from enlarging civil engineering structures to the digital management of traffic flows. Aviation exemplifies how to make best use of assets, both airlines and air traffic control optimising operations, with only exceptional additions to runway and terminal capacity
David Metz is an honorary professor at the UCL Centre for Transport Studies and will be speaking at Highways UK 2022 at the NEC in Birmingham on 2-3 November.
Richard Bradley, Head of Strategy at Midlands Connect, outlines how the Midlands is ready to take the lead on the UK’s clean energy revolution when it comes to hydrogen-fuelled vehicles.
Richard Bradley, Head of Strategy, Midlands Connect
Energy prices are sky high right now and I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw pump prices had reached an eye-watering £1.76 a litre. Fortunately, I’ve already moved to a plug-in electric vehicle and with EV prices improving all the time, it’s clear that change is truly on the horizon.
We know that the age of petrol and diesel powered transport is coming to an end and coupled with the current energy crisis, switching our fuel sources feels very timely. Government has committed to fully carbon neutral transport by 2050 and green technology is already moving fast in the car industry, with public transport operators also finding new ways of making their vehicles zero emission. But what are the viable alternative fuels for long-distance HGVs? With heavy goods vehicles accounting for around 21% of the Midlands’ road-based emissions overall, solutions are needed.
Electric vehicles dominate the green vehicle market today but we urgently need to diversify our power sources for moving freight, in order to maintain a strong and resilient transport network into the future. Midlands Connect is planning infrastructure which ensures hydrogen power can find its home in our region and help provide a route-map to clean energy alternatives across the country.
One option is hydrogen fuelled vehicles generating their own electricity through a chemical reaction inside the vehicle’s internal fuel cell. At Midlands Connect, we think hydrogen presents a promising offer for several reasons; it feels similar to petrol refuelling, can be easily stored at key locations, has minimal safety issues and fast refuelling without drawing electricity straight from the grid.
You may recall the popular book ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’, which many of the Midlands Connect team love to read to their children at bedtime, where we’re reminded that:
‘We can’t go over it.
We can’t go under it.
Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!’
Just like in this famous book, you can’t go over us, under us or through us, so it’s hardly surprising that the Midlands has become the UK’s premier location for warehousing, freight and logistics and is therefore a fantastic candidate for trialling hydrogen HGVs and refuelling.
40% of the Midlands’ economic activity comes from the manufacturing and distribution industries and we are home to around a third of the UK’s warehouse space. Combining this with a long history in the automotive industry, the region has also become a hotbed for academic research in transport.
Now of course we’re a little bit biased, but we’re not the only people who recognise why the Midlands is an ideal location for developing alternative fuels. The Department for Transport agrees and Baroness Vere has asked us to become the lead sub-national transport body for alternative fuels.
We link the north and south, connecting key routes and UK gateways at air, sea and free ports and our planned improvements will increase their resilience. Our development of a network of hydrogen refuelling, recharging and modal interchange hubs at central locations between the region’s two airports will connect key centres for the production of sand and gravel, food and many other heavy goods vital to the UK’s economy.
The Midlands is already leading on hydrogen technology in the UK, with great research centres such as MIRA and Tyseley Energy Park, as well as JCB, who are developing hydrogen internal combustion engines and have recently signed a large deal to build hydrogen construction vehicles right here in the Midlands.
Hydrogen fuel technology for heavy goods vehicles is still relatively new and Government is now seeking suitable locations to test hydrogen trucks through their zero-emission road freight trial funding competition, as outlined in 2021’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan.
The Midlands was a successful bidder with the ‘H2GVMids’ entry, developed in collaboration with Midlands Engine and led by EDF and the Energy Research Accelerator. The H2GVMids partnership includes businesses from the green hydrogen and hydrogen truck supply chain, as well as numerous hauliers, all highly motivated to kickstart this new technology. If successful, H2GVMids could receive some £30 million funding to run truck trials over the next 5 years and build on the Midlands’ proud history in the automotive, freight and logistics industries.
Today, the world of hydrogen technology is filled with questions, variables and possibilities, from how hydrogen is produced and where it comes from, to switching trucks, buses and trains to this fuel. In the Midlands, we stand united and ready to take the lead on the UK’s clean energy revolution. We can’t wait to harness the power of hydrogen.
From the cost of materials to the impact of legislation and foreign tensions, Marie-Claude Hemming, director of operations at The Civil Engineering Contractors Association, outlines what the future holds for contractors.
Marie-Claude Hemming, Director of Operations, CECA
The Government’s radical proposals for reforming the UK’s procurement process will be published in a Bill which goes before Parliament later this year.
The Civil Engineering Contractors Association believes the reforms – if implemented in the spirit in which they are intended – will lead to a reduction in the cost of public procurement and projects which deliver long term social and economic value.
The policy aims will also introduce a simplified approach and clearer route of delivery, allowing the market to arrange itself accordingly.
CECA played an active role in submitting evidence to the Government’s consultation last year, and we note that many of our members’ concerns have been reflected in its response to the Green Paper which was published just before Christmas.
As we look towards the publication of the Bill, CECA will continue to ask members for their views to ensure our engagement with MPs and Peers is totally reflective of our membership.
We are currently seeking particular clarification on the operation of the proposed Dynamic Markets system and on open and closed frameworks and call for industry views to aid our lobbying as the Bill progresses in Parliament.
We will also work with Government to ensure measures introduced to address payment challenges are easy to manage.
We anticipate that the legislation will also embed the principles of the Construction Playbook and the independent review of frameworks, published by Professor David Mosey and the Cabinet Office onto the statute books.
The publication of the Construction Playbook is the result of substantial collaboration across both the public and private sectors to share learning and best practice. It is focused on getting projects and programmes right from the start and is based on a series of key principles and policies to change how government assesses, procures and manages public works projects and programmes.
This means changing public sector attitudes to risk, driving sustainability, and innovation across projects and programmes, learning from existing examples of excellent delivery and bringing the right people together at the very start.
To complement this client step change, industry and its supply chain must also demonstrate and deliver continuous improvement in safety, cost, speed and quality of delivery, data sharing, and training.
Professor David Mosey’s Constructing the Gold Standard: An Independent Review of Public Sector Construction Frameworks sets out 24 ‘Gold Standard’ recommendations, reflecting a range of reflect a range of policies in the Playbook with detailed supporting actions, designed to improve the outcomes delivered by framework strategies, and to avoid the pitfalls of bureaucratic and inconsistent practices.
Clients are already at various stages of the implementing the principles of the Playbook, which was published just over a year ago. The general consensus is that the Playbook is beneficial to the whole of industry, in terms of improving delivery, effective use of resources and improving social value.
CECA members have welcomed the adoption of Playbook principles by some of our key clients. We note however, continued challenges experienced in obtaining meaningful data from client pipelines, combined with unbalanced investment cycles. This makes it increasingly hard to plan and manage resource across all company projects, with a lack of consistency in standardised pipeline information adding to the confusion.
The Construction Playbook has a three-year implementation plan, after which, CECA hopes that all clients, including local authorities and the private sector will be fully adopting the Playbook model, driving efficiencies, innovation and growth for the long term.
2022 will be a busy year for civil engineering contractors with global tensions exacerbating ongoing issues over the cost of materials and shortages of labour.
Notably, CECA is especially concerned over the UK Government’s removal of the tax rebate on the red fuel used by construction businesses in their plant and machinery in April.
We have consistently supported the aims of the policy, which are to reduce emissions and help meet net zero goals but have always stated that delivering greener growth must work for businesses and the consumer.
The legislation also removes the rebate for cleaner fuels. With greener plant and machinery not yet available at scale in the UK or in Europe, firms will simply switch to standard white fuel.
Before the outbreak of the war between Russia and the Ukraine, we estimated that the removal of the red fuel rebate would cost industry up to £500 million a year and each SME construction firm between £250,000 and £600,000 per annum.
Given the current crisis, these costs will now be much higher, with firms seeking to get back any loss in revenue from consumers and taxpayers.
The Civil Engineering Contractors Association continues to support the policy’s aims, but now is not the right time to implement this change. We are calling on Government to delay the introduction of the rules for twelve months to ensure we can continue to Build Back Better in increasingly challenging times.
The Civil Engineering Contractors Association is an official partner of Highways UK, find out more information on their upcoming projects by visiting their website: https://www.ceca.co.uk/
CECA’s Marie-Claude Hemming will be speaking at Highways UK this year on 2-3 November at the NEC in Birmingham.
I think it’s fair to say that the ADEPT SMART Places Live Labs Programme has at times been a wild ride.
What began as a desktop review into the digital transformation of local roads, became a wide-ranging series of trials that battled through complex procurement challenges, a global pandemic and consequent supply chain difficulties, and the redesign and reassessment of technologies, to become a successful showcase for how to implement innovation across local highways. And many of the tested technologies will make a contribution to reaching net zero!
The £22.9million Department for Transport funded two year programme, initiated and designed by ADEPT, was a collaboration of private and public sector, national and global companies, academia and SMEs all working together across eight different Live Labs. Led by a local authority, each Live Lab set up and implemented a number of trials across data, communications, materials, energy and mobility.
Trials have included:
Harvesting kinetic energy from pavements to power digital screens and provide public charging points
Using thermal energy to de-ice carparks plus light and heat workshops
Using solar surfacing on roads to power buildings
Trialling using sensors, VivaCity cameras on waste lorries and drones to assess highways and local roads’ maintenance needs
Creating composite recycled lighting columns with sensors
Examining last mile mobility
Testing the environmental sustainability and quality of using waste plastics in roads
Creating data analytics to support air quality management areas and public health
Managing congestion using data and video analytics to create personalised travel planning through understanding travel behaviour
The results have far surpassed initial expectations, with key outcomes for the programme also encompassing behavioural change, cross-authority collaboration and a re-examination of public sector approaches to risk and innovation. Central to the programme has also been commercialisation, and the final outputs will include a series of business cases from each Live Lab. These will detail the technical, commercial and supporting data that will enable other local authorities and the wider sector to assess the suitability of an innovation for its own geography and needs.
Many of the lead authorities are taking their work beyond the lifetime of their Live Lab, creating internal cross-sector Innovation and Technology Boards and attracting additional funding and resource opportunities. Others are working with councils outside the programme, for example to discuss how ‘living walls’ can be incorporated into local bus strategies to improve localised air quality. There has even been crossover to other sectors, with two Live Labs exploring how their technology could be used to support adult social care.
Of course, the programme has not been without its own challenges, and if we are successful in moving forward with Live Labs 2, there is much we can build on and incorporate into a new programme.
In the early days, the interpretation of procurement rules differed widely across local authorities, to the extent that some lost the first six months of the two year programme trying to resolve issues. Fast innovation projects cannot bear that sort of delay and we will need to design a new flexible approach that can work through contractual restraints at pace. Although most Live labs were able to adapt to setbacks, for projects that were hugely ambitious and complex in scope, some problems proved difficult to overcome, also resulting in delays.
This type of evaluation and shared learning is all part of the Live Labs ethos. We set out to capture everything – the successes, the challenges, outcomes and failures – and make it all publicly available. We have published white papers, reports, articles and blogs as well as taken part in webinars, conferences and delivered two Live Lab Expos. I would also encourage you to watch the Women in Transport video, where our four female project leads discuss their careers and what it takes to be a female leader in the highways sector with ADEPT CEO, Hannah Bartram. It’s both illuminating and inspiring!
I’d like to thank our lead authorities – Buckinghamshire Council, Central Bedfordshire Council, Cumbria County Council, Kent County Council, Reading Borough Council, Staffordshire County Council, Suffolk County Council and Transport for West Midlands – for their tenacity, humour and creativity, exactly the approach you need when a global pandemic gets in the way of the best laid plans!
Suffolk County Council is setting up a platform where the business cases will be freely available, and you will be able to find details for this when its ready, and much more, on the ADEPT website: www.adeptnet.org.uk/livelabs.
The ADEPT SMART Places Programme is a five-year project examining and developing innovation to enable the adoption of innovative and digital technology across the local highway network. The initial research report ‘Digital Innovation: The route to the highways systems of the future’ was published in October 2017. In January 2019, ADEPT secured £22.9 million funding from the Department for Transport for Phase 3 of the programme, which sees the development of eight individual Live Labs projects led by local authorities across England with university and private sector partners. The Live Labs are piloting innovation across SMART communications, transport, highways maintenance, energy, materials and mobility. The ADEPT SMART Places programme has been developed with partners: SNC-Lavalin’s Atkins business, EY, Kier, 02, Ringway and WSP.
About ADEPT
The Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT) represents local authority county, unitary and metropolitan Place Directors. Operating at the strategic tier of local government, members are responsible for delivering public services that primarily relate to the physical environment and the economy, but which have a significant impact on all aspects of the nation’s well-being. ADEPT represents members’ interests by proactively engaging central Government on emerging policy and issues, promoting initiatives aimed at influencing Government policy and through the development of best practices and responding to European and UK Government initiatives and consultations. Out wider membership includes Local Enterprise Partnerships, Combined Authorities, Sub-national Transport Bodies and Corporate Partners.
ADEPT is an official partner of Highways UK, for more on ADEPT visit: www.adeptnet.org.uk
Paula Hewitt, this year’s President of ADEPT, will be speaking at Highways UK 2022 in the Local Authority Hub at the NEC in Birmingham on 2-3 November.
Delivering Vision Zero will be challenging and resource intensive. The timeframe for delivery also requires focus on what matters most in reducing the number and severity of casualties says Jeremy Phillips, leader of CEDR’s Working Group on Road Safety
The ambition to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries (KSI) on our road networks, often to zero and within relatively short timeframes, is shared amongst several countries and individual road administrations across Europe.
In England, National Highways’ own ambition, for example, is to achieve Vision Zero (in which no one dies or is seriously injured as a consequence of working or travelling on its network) by 2040.
Safe travel is, in general terms, achieved when safe people travel in safe vehicles on safe roads. While national road administrations have direct control over just one of those factors – safe roads – they can exert a wider influence over factors that are linked to collision and casualty reduction. Supporting road users in achieving safe and compliant behaviours, and motivating vehicle manufacturers to design for greater safety are examples of the wider influence exerted by road administrations.
Safe roads remain, however, the area in which the greatest influence may be exerted. It is in this context that CEDR’s Working Group on Road Safety has considered the main challenges that will be faced by roads directors over the next five to ten years. They have outlined the challenges in a position paper which will be discussed at the Conference of European Directors of Roads (CEDR), which is taking place as part of this year’s Highways UK.
The challenges outlined include ensuring a strong link between road safety ambitions and the sustainability agenda. And acknowledging and exploiting areas of common purpose, such as managed speeds for injury reduction, collision avoidance and pollution control.
The paper also acknowledges the importance of delivering safety across the entire road network. There are clear benefits derived from enhancing the safety of routes that carry the highest flows of traffic. But a vision for zero KSI requires that all roads need to deliver the same level of performance, and consequently require proportionate levels of investment. The pathway to achieving this will be one of prioritisation. This presents a further challenge to roads administrators to share data and intelligence, to help ensure that we collectively achieve the greatest good for the greatest number in the shortest possible time.
Similarly, the paper recognises that a zero KSI ambition requires that enhanced safety is provided for all categories of road user. This is a challenge that becomes more demanding as the types of roads for which an administration is responsible becomes wider. Physical infrastructure to segregate modes, especially those most vulnerable to injury, and to protect those working on the highway will be an important contributor. But it will also be a challenge where road space is limited.
New technologies, including digitisation, are likely to make a significant contribution to casualty reduction. Roads authorities have a role to play in supporting technological advancement, especially in providing the data that will enable more digitised vehicles to operate efficiently. There will also be challenges in managing the transition period between now, and a future in which connected and autonomous vehicles are dominant.
Delivering Vision Zero will not be easy and it will require considerable resource to achieve. The relatively short time period over which this needs to be done also means that road administrations will need to focus on the measures that matter most, and which are most likely to ensure fewer casualties. The Working Group for Road Safety’s paper will help to provide that focus, whilst accepting that decisions about priorities will be greatly influenced by the challenges faced by each road administration in their own jurisdiction.
Jeremy Phillips is the Leader of the Conference of European Directors of Roads (CEDR) Working Group on Road Safety. He is also Head of Road User Safety at National Highways. His presentation: The Main Road Safety Challenges for European Roads Directors for the next five to ten years – towards Vision Zero, will be held in the National Highways theatre at 9.45 – 10.00 on Thursday 4 November at Highways UK.
We need to see a cultural change towards approaches to carbon, says John Dixon, Jacobs’ Vice President and Highways Market Director, and we should take inspiration from the transformationl improvements in safety achieved within the sector over the last 20 years
Over the last 20 years we can take pride in the transformational improvements made in health, safety and wellbeing in the highways sector. Key to this has been the significant investments in cultural safety programmes. This has driven a mindset change throughout the value chain, with so many more people now choosing to do the right thing and lead the way on safety, regardless of their level of experience or seniority. These were ‘no regrets’ investments that in many cases have yielded delivery and bottom-line business benefits, as well as improved safety performance.
Just like safety, carbon reduction now demands the full and absolute focus of the industry over the next thirty years, but critically over the rest of this decade. There is so much we can do together to reduce carbon emissions in highway infrastructure solutions, and we have the talent to do it.
If we look at how safety has now become embedded into organisations’ business strategies and operations, we can take inspiration to do the same with carbon. Many of you will be familiar with having a ‘safety moment’ at the start of each meeting. This is one relatively small feature of a typical safety programme that places health, safety and wellbeing management at its heart. Perhaps the next time you’re holding a meeting you could think about also having a ‘carbon moment,’ and help place carbon reduction at the centre of your organisation?
In addition to safety moments other features of the safety culture change architecture include leadership commitment training, all staff orientation training, staff-led action groups, observation records/’don’t walk bys’ and stand downs, amongst others. Drawing on this existing architecture we can make a running start to embed carbon management in our organisations, crucial to driving environmental, social and economic growth within our sector.
There are some challenges to this, with few organisations implementing transformational change in the same way. This has been the case with safety management. Imagine how much faster it might have been if everyone adopted the same approach, whether that be highway authorities/clients or suppliers, especially when the goal of zero accidents or harm has been so universally sought by the sector.
Adoption of a common standard to frame our investment and transformation therefore makes perfect sense for carbon, as net zero is the goal we are all striving for. PAS 2080 ‘Carbon Management in Infrastructure’ is increasingly being adopted and promoted in the highways sector. It provides a systematic way for managing whole life carbon in infrastructure delivery that the industry could use to accelerate improvement. This is a flexible standard that can be applied to different project types, sizes and stages. If we use it as a means to facilitate consistency and collaboration at pace we stand a better chance of making a difference on time!
The sooner we see a cultural change towards approaches to carbon, the sooner we can meet our net zero targets, and ensure better business performance, reduced costs, increased competitiveness and innovation. We need to build on what we’ve achieved so far, and make sure our highways are fit for a truly sustainable world.
John Dixon is speaking at Highways UK in the Main Theatre panel Getting serious: climate action towards net zero which takes place at 10.40 on 3 November. Other panelists include Rachel Skinner, Ben Harris, Jamie Bardot and Elliot Shaw.
Fiona O’Donnell, Jacob’s Head of Health, Safety and Environemnt (HSE) outlines her organisation’s efforts to break down the barriers that hinder honest conversations about mental health and encourage an open culture of support around the globe
Fiona O’Donnell, Jacobs
How would you feel if you had a tool that allowed you to check your mental health regularly to spot early warning signs, avoid prolonged suffering and treatment and increase your mental resilience? That’s what our One Million Lives campaign is all about, and I’m proud to be its champion…
At Jacobs we’ve been supporting the mental health of our colleagues for a long time by hosting a mental health resilience programme, dealing with topics such as navigating the challenges of lockdown, how to build resilience and coping with grief.
However, insights from the programme, combined with feedback received from mental health champions, employee surveys and conversations with mental health experts all highlighted the need for more proactive and preventative solutions. And that’s where we decided to develop ‘One Million Lives.’
Launched in December 2020 One Million Lives is a complimentary campaign accessible to everyone, no matter where you live, or who you work for. It’s as relevant to people working in the Highways sector as to any other area of activity. Many people don’t have access to corporate resources or Employee Assistance Programs, so we wanted to develop a tool that detects early signs of mental distress and offers proactive strategies, such as sleep, exercise, and social media behaviours.
Our goal? To break down the barriers that hinder honest conversations about mental health and encourage an open culture of support around the globe.
To complement the app we developed a website with additional resources to help you to engage with the One Million Lives campaign and help you with your mental health growth. By inviting people to routinely check-in to see how they are doing and encourage their own networks to do the same, we hope more people will become aware of their state of mental health.
While still in its infancy, the data collected to date (14,000 check-ins) has already helped us at Jacobs to gain insights into the mental wellbeing of our employees, and allowed us to make informed, data-driven decisions in response.
We, and many other organisations believe that this campaign has the potential to transform our collective approach to mental health. But ultimately One Million Lives is more than just about an app or a website. It’s about encouraging everyone to have open and honest conversations.
To learn more about One Million Lives make sure you look out for Fiona’s session at Highways UK running on the Big Thinking Stage at 2pm on 4 November. Highways UK is free to attend, book your place now
National Highway’s puts customers at the core of everything it does. And it’s vital, says Customer Experience Director Pete Martin, that everyone in our business and supply chain understands how they can make a difference for our customers and are empowered to do so
Pete Martin is National Highways’ Customer Experience Director
Think about the last time you bought a branded product; perhaps an electrical appliance like a TV. It’s highly likely you did some research before pressing the ‘buy’ button. You probably looked at various price points, delivery times and warrantee options. Before making a final commitment, you may also have looked at customer reviews; not just about the product but also about the service of the company selling. Ultimately, your final selection was probably down to trust in the company you selected to deliver your product on time and in great condition.
But what happens when there’s less choice for your customers? And fewer tangible touchpoints like a point of sale or a friendly note when they receive their shiny new product. How do you gain, and retain, the trust of your customer base and make them feel like you care?
That’s the challenge we face at National Highways every day. We know that many of our customers don’t have a choice about whether to travel on our roads. But they can choose to listen to us, to follow our advice or use our information, and they can choose to trust us. Their expectations and experiences matter hugely to us, which is why customer service is one of our top priorities.
Our first customer service strategy, launched in 2016, has played an essential role in putting customers at the core of how we work. But our customers are diverse, and their needs are changing. So, we need to keep driving change and improving on those things our customers are telling us mean the most to them.
Since late last year we’ve been undertaking a review of our strategy to ensure it reflects the evolving expectations of both the people who use our roads and those who live and work near them. In May 2021, we released our new strategy: Making a difference for our customers. The new strategy is evolutionary. It’s built on greater insight and analysis into what really matters to our customers, as well as our performance goals for the second Road Period. It also recognises our customers’ changing needs in relation to travel patterns, the environment and technology.
The new strategy focuses on building capability by empowering our people and developing better relationships with our customers. This will help us improve how we deliver the basics, operate a well maintained and safe network, and provide better information for our customers.
For example, we’re making improvements to our roadside signs and signals so that they display information that is helpful and relevant to our customers. At the same time, we’ve enhanced how our operators set these signs through virtual reality training. This immersive training brings to life the broader impact of incidents on our customers, encouraging operators to ask, ‘If I were the customer, what information would I like to have in this situation?’
We also want to make sure that contacting us is easy and stress-free for all our customers. We’ve introduced the video relay service, SignLive to our contact centre so that our Deaf customers have equal access to this service. And if someone breaks down on our roads and is unable to use a SOS phone due to an impairment, they can now text us on 07380 283 600 for roadside assistance
Ultimately, we want to enable our customers to have better end-to-end experiences and feel confident that they’ll have a safe and reliable journey.
To help deliver our customer service strategy, it’s vital that everyone in our business and supply chain understands how they can make a difference for our customers and be empowered to do so. We all need to understand which areas of customer experience we can contribute to, and where we can do more.
Pete Martin is National Highways’ Customer Experience Director. To find out more about working together to make a difference for customers, come to Pete’s talk at Highways UK, which is running in the National Highways Theatre on 3 November, 14.15-14.35
What does equity, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) mean to you? asks Rachel Billington Head of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I), Europe at AECOM. Is it a more diverse workforce? Is it flexible working? Getting students interested in STEM? A bid requirement? Or is it something that’s for the human resources department to deal with?
Rachel Billington is Head of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I), Europe at AECOM.
From my perspective, it’s not one of the above, it’s all of the above and so much more. Yes, it means recruiting a more diverse workforce, it means rounder educational opportunities and it means there are some legal obligations around it too as part of the Equality Act 2010. And any of us involved in bids know ED&I is nowadays routinely mandated in procurement.
But the responsibility for a workforce where everyone has fair opportunity, which is diverse and where people feel included, is also down to every single one of us. In an organisation where ED&I truly works, the principles are integrated both at a corporate and personal level.
Many people think ED&I is about celebrating difference and events, and this is really important, but there is more to it if you want to really bring about cultural change. This means at a corporate level ensuring a robust and effective strategy, with supporting governance, to encourage ED&I. This not only locks-in good practice, it sets a precedent about the values of that company, which can cascade down from management to staff. But how well does industry do this?
When we’re thinking about ourselves and our impact on ED&I, it involves taking a step back and thinking about what we do and how our own biases can impact others. Whether that’s an off-the-cuff comment or a decision about staffing.
On a personal level, the issue can sometimes include behaviours we’re not aware of. At AECOM I recently held a webinar on microaggressions and the negative impact on the way they make people feel in the workplace. Have you ever been in a situation where the only woman in a meeting is automatically asked to take notes or a person from a different ethnicity being asked where they’re really from? Some of these microaggressions don’t come from malice, but how can we deal with these situations better? How can we raise awareness?
I believe a good place to start is to become comfortable in having difficult discussions. One way we have done this at AECOM is by launching our employee resource groups, or ERGs. By sharing experiences, ideas and opinions, we can better understand why ED&I is important to the industry, but also understand what challenges the industry and our people face when dealing with the issues which arise from this.
It’s not a new issue, so we need to take stock and ask ourselves whether we’ve made tangible progress and what has worked well. And how well are we engaging leaders and holding them to account for delivering meaningful change in industry?
Rachel Billington is Head of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I), Europe at AECOM. She is convening a panel at Highways UK on 3 November to explore these issues further and will be joined by Ron Calderwood-Duncan – Head of EDI & Engagement at National Highways, Jyoti Sehdev – Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead at Costain, and Rory Poole, Roads Sector Leader, UK & Ireland at AECOM.
Transport is one of the main contributors to carbon emissions in London and to meet the Mayor’s ambitious target to make the capital a net zero city by 2030 we will need to dramatically increase smart and electric transport alternatives – and not just electric cars!And to achieve this, there is a pressing need to consider the role of highways and streets within the emerging digital ecosystem, says Nathan Pierce, Head of Smart London and Sharing Cities at the Greater London Authority.
Nathan Pierce, Head of Smart London and Sharing Cities, Greater London Authority
Our highways are connectors; to, from and within our cities. Today, cities are under increasing pressure to develop more effective ways to reduce our carbon footprint, and smart infrastructure is essential for this modernisation. A good example is smart mobility. The demand for intelligent mobility solutions that make it easier for people and goods to be transported to, from and through cities is growing. And so many cities have stepped up to the challenge, working across sectors to find solutions that work for their citizens.
Our major international smart cities venture – Sharing Cities – is addressing some of the most pressing urban challenges facing urban areas today. Three lighthouse cities (London, Lisbon, Milan) have implemented a range of green tech and data services in close collaboration with three fellow cities (Bordeaux, Burgas, Warsaw) to test out the latest thinking and to scale up what works.
After drawing on nearly €25 million in EU funding, the project has triggered nearly €270 million in investment in an effort to expand a smart strategy that involves energy use, low carbon transport and data management. 34 partners in Sharing Cities from the private sector – both large and small – public sector and academic institutions have collaborated to develop workable business models for smart technologies that can be scaled up and replicated across other UK and European cities. In doing so they have supported the growth of the green tech market.
All six cities have demonstrated the benefits that using green tech and working together can have on carbon reduction and service delivery. In the first phase we implemented building retrofits, e-mobility, sustainable energy management systems, smart street infrastructure (such as smart lampposts), urban sharing platforms and digital incentivisation applications. Using the learnings from lighthouse cities, fellow cities co-designed, validated and implemented similar solutions and models within their own city contexts.
In the world of mobility, we have managed to shift the dial on how our cities approach mobility as a service and shared transport solutions. We have deployed over ten mobility islands across our cities and demonstrated the contribution they make. We have deployed 1,000s of publicly owned shared bikes which have led to improvements in cycling infrastructure, especially in Lisbon. We have converted entire municipal fleets to electric vehicles with very positive results. And we have tested a whole range of parking sensors and traffic management technologies that can help us to reach our climate targets.
We know that this technology can have a real impact, now we want to reach out to various sectors and boroughs across London to understand how we can scale up what works and link in with existing transit plans.
Nathan Pierce is Head of Smart London and Sharing Cities, Greater London Authority. Nathan is speaking on the Big Thinking Stage at Highways UK (12.50, 3 November). He will further explore how highways and transport fit within the smart city context and London’s 2030 net-zero ambitions, while providing latest insights from the international Sharing Cities programme.
National Highways has been working with the government’s Project Speed infrastructure taskforce to develop ways of accelerating the delivery of major road schemes, making it says National Highways’ director David Haimes, “an exciting and challenging opportunity for us and our suppliers to transform how we work together”
David Haimes, National Highways’ Regional Investment Programme Director
Rebuilding the economy and levelling up the country are two of the great opportunities and challenges for us in the highways industry. The Prime Minister announced the Build Back Better, Faster, Greener initiative last year. Since then National Highways has been working with the government’s Project Speed infrastructure taskforce to develop ways of accelerating the delivery of major road schemes.
So far we have almost halved the timeline for the construction period of the £1 billion A66 trans-Pennine road upgrade, from ten years to five. We’ll achieve the time savings, together with our supply chain partners, by using even more modular and offsite construction practices.
We’ve also taken a detailed look at the A66 project timelines to see where we can shift activity to the left and fast track work streams. For example, site investigation and archaeology work have been undertaken within the preliminary design stage. This will support a robust development consent order (DCO).
But the A66 is only a pathfinder for what we want to do next with our supply chain colleagues. Working with the Department for Transport, we want reduce the time it takes to develop, design and deliver. We’ll use new processes that modernise our approach and remove obstacles to progress. And we want to streamline how we run major projects in National Highways, working with our public and private delivery partners. We’ll be looking to embed delivery innovations like those we have used on the A66 and A14.
So the challenge for the highways sector is to accelerate the economic, social and road user benefits by delivering faster. To create and enable new jobs, better connect businesses with customers, and make social and holiday journeys easier for families and friends. And to add social value to local communities and improve the environment around our network.
There is an exciting and challenging opportunity for us and our suppliers to transform how we work together, and connect the country even more quickly and efficiently.
David Haimes is joint director of National Highways’ Regional Investment Programme and is leading the company’s work on accelerating infrastructure delivery. Suppliers will learn much more when David unveils the plan alongside Philip Andrews, Deputy Director of Strategic Roads at the Department for Transport, in the National Highways Theatre at Highways UK on 3 November, at 14.40 – 15.15
Today the highways teams within British local authorities face a number of challenges, and as an industry we must do more to support them. The work of a highways operative can often be physically challenging, dangerous and unappreciated. Consequently, we are facing a labour shortage, with a concerning trend towards an aging workforce. An unnamed authority has recently conducted a review to assess exact this – with resulting showing an average age of over 50 years for their highways operatives and a troubling level of absence.
The science of strategic highways asset management is going through seismic change. Historically, the approach focused on gauging the financial impact of different road repair and maintenance decisions. Local authorities had to weigh up whether it made sense to save money at the outset by using a less expensive surface treatment, only to have to spend more down the line on road repairs or additional surface dressings. On the other hand, they had to assess whether using more durable but expensive materials from the word go would ultimately prove an economically-sounder decision.
