Highways England went to Westminster today for the first scrutiny session on its overall performance from the Transport Select Committee.
As it comes to the final months of the first Road Investment Strategy, the delayed and cancelled projects have mounted up, there is great public concern over smart motorways and time is running out to meet its extremely difficult KPI targets.
No surprise then that it was a tough session but an important one to get through. The headlines will go to the issue smart motorway safety.
Chief executive Jim O’Sullivan made some big admissions by civil service standards – including that greater use of stopped vehicle detection would have saved lives, dynamic hard shoulders are too complicated and should be stopped and smart motorways should have been standardised from the beginning.
It is fair to say that if given a second time around Highways England would deliver its smart motorway roll-out in a different way.
As an authority and a construction and delivery body, Highways England face a really difficult challenge. It must balance the right amount of raising public awareness and, let’s be honest, applying pressure to ensure the right driver behaviour, while not seeming like it is victim blaming and suggesting that crashes are all drivers’ fault.
It must also balance the need to be a data-led organisation - it can honestly say our motorways are among the safest roads in the world and its KSI numbers are relatively speaking very small - and still show that it cares about individual human lives and the tragedy of human loss.
What was impressive about Highways England’s performance was it never denied this is the line it has to tread. Mr O’Sullivan was professional in the face of intense pressure and frank and honest about Highways England’s nature – it must be a data-led body that works to protocols and processes.
Managing our strategic road network is a tightrope spread across multiple high speed lanes and incorporating more than a billion journeys every year. Highways England has learned some valuable lessons as it walked this tightrope for the first time and should not be compared to perfection but what came before it.
A brief and by no means exhaustive list of success could include:
- worker safety has massively increased,
- the road safety target is in sight despite issues,
- the entire network has been given the iRAP safety analysis
- it is creating a digital twin of the network and begun computer-led design
- modular design and off-site construction has been accelerated
- close to £2bn of efficiencies is in sight
- asset knowledge has been developed
- its innovation fund has brought new solutions to the network
- massive improvements in customer service systems and strategies have been put in place
- new models of procurement and designated funding have been developed
- new environmental solutions have been applied
- and its guaranteed investment and supply chain working has given confidence to the sector at a challenging time.
The overall portfolio of works has a benefit cost ratio of between 1:2 and 1:2.5, and the research, development, innovation and confidence it has given the sector is also of enormous, ongoing value.
So before we scrutinise the individual mistakes let’s remember the overall benefits and the progress it has made in just a few short years.