Highways Agency

Journey reliability

We recognise that it is not possible to build our way out of congestion. For our customers, unreliable journey times can cause significant frustration, making it hard for people to plan their journeys.

We have therefore been set a target to improve reliability, which is to ensure that the average vehicle delay on the 10% slowest journeys is less in 2007-08 than in the baseline period of August 2004 to July 2005.

We are implementing a delivery plan for improving reliability. It includes:

• improved management of roadworks
• introducing motorway access management to improve traffic flow
• extending the Motorway Incident Detection and Signalling Systems (MIDAS) to improve safety
• schemes to reduce congestion and improve safety at key hotspots
• traffic officers and incident support units reducing the impact of incidents

Monitoring to the end of March 2007 showed a slippage of about 8.7% against the target. This appears to be related to a higher impact of traffic growth than originally anticipated.

We are putting additional measures in place to tackle unreliable journeys, including:

• trials of collision investigation equipment to speed up accident investigations
• increasing the number of motorway access management sites to smooth traffic flow
• doubling the amount of network covered by diversion routes

Traffic Officer Service

During 2006-07 we steadily increased the number of traffic officers on the motorway network, reaching full capability in October 2006.

They are supported by our seven regional control centres (RCCs) which are now fully operational. In the last quarter of 2006-07 traffic officers were attending an average of 1,400 incidents a day across the motorway network.

Programme of improvements to the network

Major schemes

This year we completed 11 major schemes in the strategic roads programme, but overall performance on the programme slightly undershot the target. A number of projects were delayed as we sought to control their scope and costs, and considered the recommendations of the Nichols and NAO reviews.

We are now taking forward only those projects that provide best value for money.

Major road schemes completed during 2006-07:

• M60 Junction 5-8 widening A500 City Road & Stoke junction improvement
• M5 Junctions 19-20 southbound climbing lane (Naish Hill)
• A30/A382 Merrymeet junction
• M5 Junctions 19-20 northbound climbing lane (Tickenham Hill)
• A419 Commonhead junction
• A249 Iwade - Queenborough improvement
• A11 Attleborough bypass
• A421 Great Barford bypass M40/A404 Handy Cross junction improvement
• A63 Melton grade-separated junction

Use of hard shoulder – Active Traffic Management

We successfully introduced the final phase of the Active Traffic Management (ATM) project, using the hard shoulder as a running lane during busy periods on a 17km stretch of the busy M42 motorway east of Birmingham in September 2006. This was some six months ahead of target.

Influencing Travel Behaviour

As part of our demand management measures, we have implemented eight travel plans this year as part of our Infl uencing Travel Behaviour programme, adding to the existing three schemes, which we have started to evaluate.

We develop these plans with employers and developers and aim to reduce the overall traffi c impact of business or residential areas by encouraging staff or residents to adopt more sustainable travel patterns. More details can be found in the corporate social responsibility section of this report.

Other Influencing Travel Behaviour initiatives include:

• working with tourism authorities to smooth peak traffic flows
• encouraging transport modal shift initiatives with freight and coach operators
• working with local authorities and developers to ensure that where appropriate, travel plans are implemented as part of planning conditions

Find out more about Influencing Travel Behaviour

Road safety

We are working hard to achieve our share of DfT’s target of improving road safety. Our strategic road network carries about a third of all traffic but accounts for only about an eighth of all accidents. In 2006 we are able to report signifi cant success and are well on the way to achieving the target.

To sustain year on year casualty reductions, we have had to look to new ways to obtain further safety improvements in addition to engineering measures and improvements. We have begun to develop an ‘influencing driver behaviour’ programme that includes developing our toolkit of safety education material.

We are also supporting the DfT’s “Think” campaign, using new technology and signs to alert drivers to poor behaviour;and working more closely with our partners and other stakeholders.

Within the Agency we now provide advice and regional safety targets to help those directly managing the network prepare local area safety action plans. These plans show how we intend to deliver year on year improvements and how we will work with our supporting partners to achieve results.

Maintaining the network

Maintenance is the biggest item in our budget. We carry out a wide range of activities including:

• regular inspections to identify where maintenance is needed
• repair and maintenance of roads and bridges
• resurfacing
• maintenance of lighting equipment and communication systems such as emergency telephone and electronic signs
• clearing debris and litter
• salting roads for winter

Each year we assess the road surface condition of the network by looking at rutting, unevenness, cracking and skid resistance. National roads condition survey data published for this year by the Department for Transport in May 2007, from machine based surveys of the surface of English motorways and all purpose trunk roads, showed our roads to be in very good condition.

We actively ensure that the programme of maintenance delivers value for money and this includes collaboration with local authorities where possible. Our contract strategy has helped to deliver improved quality of service and reduced cost of service delivery. The renewals element of the maintenance programme is prioritised on those interventions which deliver the greatest benefit and full account is taken of environmental impact.

Respecting the environment

Our corporate plan,‘Customers First’, highlights our responsibility to balance the need to travel with the need to contribute to a better quality of life for all. All schemes in the agency’s strategic roads programme include high standards of environmental mitigation.

Since we published our environmental strategy in 1999 we have set targets for delivering environmental improvements around the network.

We are making excellent progress on delivering medium term objectives, particularly delivery of priority actions from the agency’s biodiversity action plan and the analysis and treatment of water outfalls to reduce pollution.

We began to implement our environmental information system, ENVIS, last year. The system allows better management of environmental aspects of schemes through their whole life, from construction to decommissioning.

We published our first corporate social responsibility (CSR) report in last year’s annual report. The updated CSR in this year's Annual Report deals in more detail with environmental issues and our sustainable performance.