The Department for Transport's (DfT) lead on the Street Manager project - the new software for handling street works administration - has conceded it is unlikely to have all the functionality of the old system in time for the 1 April 2020 switch over.
The traffic management community has raised concerns about the switch-over to Street Manager, arguing that it will not save costs as promised and will require older systems to be kept as backup due to the lack of functionality.
Under the DfT's plans it will be law from next April for local authorities and utility companies to have to use Street Manager, as it replaces the current Electronic Transfer of Notifications (EToN) system, which has been around in various forms since the 1990s.
As of 1 November, all local authorities can get a login and start trying Street Manager out before it goes live; however it has already been the subject of heated debate in the sector for some time.
Paul Chandler, the DfT's product manager for Street Manager, told Highways that it will 'not be as sophisticated as EToN' by next year, as the old system had so long to be finessed.
The aim was to make sure it would have all the functionality needed for people to do their jobs from 2020, he said, and added that the DfT has 'a list of things that we are working on' to imporve it.
'Everything we do is based on agile principles. It will continue to evolve over time following feedback from the industry. A key part is to improve co-ordination and collaboration,' he said.
Ensuring the system has everything that is legally required for users is the priority, but there is a lot of useful functionality on EToN outside of this, Highways has been told.
Jack Wiltshire, head of highways at Dorset Council, said: 'Since being asked by the secretary of state to implement Street Manager by April next year, my confidence that a fully functioning and fit for purpose system will be available remains low.
'I hope that we can be given more reassurance that we will have the appropriate functionality at the go live date to continue to effectively manage our network and give the best available service to the people who work on and use our roads.
Other local government officers said there were a range of problems they hoped to see addressed.
Highways was told that there is no historic data transferred into the new system at the moment, and that this is the result of budgetary concerns at the DfT rather than functionality.
As the industry relies heavily on records and previous completions this represents a problem to practitioners.
This means councils either must carry out a laborious process of manual input or use an API platform to automatically transfer data from the EToN system.
Highways understands that because of the potential lack of functionality and records, many authorities are set to keep the old EToN running as a workaround. It will not allow live transactions from next April but could be used to hold the records.
This has also caused frustration as the new system was supposed to save local authorities money but the vast majority of councils could end up retaining EToN and paying for API link to Street Manager, which actually incurs additional costs, Highways was told.
Mr Chandler discussed the system at the recent ADEPT traffic managers' conference, stating that 'the statutory instrument to implement changes could be laid as early as end of November or early next year'.
He said: 'We have had forward plans added into Street Manager, reverse start stops was something industry said they wanted that is now in Street Manager. Permit modification requests are now in there; you asked for it we listened. The piece around events and licenses will be great for user co-ordination.
'The system is designed to take clear data and show it back to the public and the data could live on Waze or Google Maps. A key principle is we want to have fewer road works taking place through collaboration and we want to have more data available to the public to plan more efficient journeys.'
The cost bandings under the new system are based on works carried out in the council area between 2016 and 2018 by local works promoters - not council works.
A series of road shows on Street Manager will be taking place around the country over the next month of so.
Mr Chandler advised people that if a job ends after 1 April next year it needs to be re-entered into Street Manager.
Looking ahead he said: 'What really excites me is what will you guys be able to do with it. Nationally, we will know how many defects were issued in a particular year; why more in one region than another' We can even go into contract data if we manage it in the right way.
'Get yourself involved in the queue for a login; get ready to go live. If you are thinking of going through an API, you will want some staff to be able to login to Street Manager interface if your API goes down.
