Highways Agency

These are our priorities for delivery in 2007-08:

Investing in the network

Seven major schemes are due to open, and work will begin on nine others.

Work continues on widening the M25, our biggest current project, with the contract award expected in 2008.

We will implement the recommendations of the Nichols and National Audit Office reports on programme management.

Overcoming congestion

We will complete the transfer of traffic management functions previously carried out by the police to the traffic officer service.

Outcomes of the M42 Active Traffic Management pilot will be reported to Ministers.

We will extend coverage of the automatic incident detection system, (MIDAS); and wider use of mandatory variable speed limits.

Upgrading of our national communications network will continue with more reliable transmission equipment installed.

Opening our first car share lane at the M606–M62 junction near Bradford.

Informing our customers

New information services to be implemented include:

• the traffic radio service
• travel times on electronic variable message signs
• the provision of real-time CCTV images through the web and to travel news media organisations, allowing customers to see travel conditions for themselves
• Implementing at least 18 new travel plans.
• Implementing our new spatial planning policy.
• Developing our driver information programme ‘toolkit’ that supports the area safety action plans launched in 2006-07.

Safety

We will continue to introduce new measures to improve road user safety and our network safety performance. Although the total number of people killed and seriously injured on our roads decreases each year, the trend is not uniform, so we will be investigating further why the level of improvement has stopped on some roads, and also what we can do to halt the increasing number of for example motorcycle casualties.

As part of this we plan to introduce new measures for the treatment of whole routes rather than known accident locations.

We will build on the introduction of our new health and safety management system for monitoring the safety of our own staff and our supply chain contractors so we can make improvements based on better quality data.

We will look for ways to minimise disruption caused by our maintenance activities: right works - right time - right place

There will be public consultation on proposals for a new roadside facilities policy.

Environmental matters

Key initiatives include:

• implementing our environmental information system
• publishing new advice on cultural heritage assessment and innovative guidance on historic landscape assessment

Customer engagement

Launching a new computerbased management system to track stakeholder concerns.

Extending the scope of our customer surveys:

• wider range of sustainability considerations
• wider stakeholder group

Progressing our Disability Action Plan 2006-09 including auditing our network to identify features that make it unreasonably difficult for disabled people to use it.

Increasing customer engagement during major schemes by following our revised guidance on Approaches to Public Involvement.

Efficiency improvements

We will implement the findings of our 2006 scrutiny into the efficiency of our maintenance programme.

Procurement efficiency will be improved by:

• sharing learning with our local authority stakeholders
• purchasing collaboratively with our supply chain and local authorities
• developing communities of highways suppliers and clients in the regions to assist the sharing of best practice and efficiencies