The contract, which has been awarded by the Highways Agency, covers approximately 1,242 km of motorways and trunk roads in Surrey, Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. It will go live from 1 November 2013 and is valued at up to £140 million per annum.
EM is the current service provider in Area 3 having been appointed as the Highways Agency’s managing agent contractor in 2008. The new ASC contract will run to 2018 with extensions possible until 2021.
Dave Wright, EM managing director, said: “Having successfully delivered our current portfolio of MAC contracts to a high standard, consistently featuring in the upper quartile of the Highways Agency’s performance metrics, I am confident we can make this latest ASC contract an exemplar. We are committed to delivering to the Highways Agency’s vision of safe roads, reliable journeys and informed travellers through EM’s strong core focus on the safety, asset management and delivering better value year on year.”
Mike Wilson, the Highways Agency’s acting network development and delivery director, added: “ASCs are more outcome based and less prescriptive, enabling our suppliers to be more innovative about the way their services are delivered. The key point is that the roads they manage on our behalf continue to be maintained to high standards and that we are able to achieve substantial savings – making an important contribution to the national budget deficit.”
Key features of the new contracts include:
- Maintenance standards which are ‘outcome based’ and less prescriptive about how and when work is delivered
- Affordable levels of service, with appropriate quality but no reward for over-delivery
- Incentives for innovation and efficiency, including the opportunity for contract extensions
- Simplified pricing mechanisms with a ‘year on year’ cost reduction mechanism
- A higher cost threshold for works to allow more procurement through the ASC rather than by separate tender
- Managing technology maintenance and improvement works through the main contract for more efficient and joined up delivery.
