Practical steps on the journey to net zero (webinar / discussion series)

Local highways maintenance incentive fund. Surveying roads, moving away from the status quo. The importance of active travel. Members of the Local Council Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG) are given the opportunity to ask the Department for Transport (DfT) anything as part of an exclusive webinar series. The quarterly webinar series entitled ‘#AsktheDfT’ bring together a panel of experts to answer questions which are focused around key topic areas. LCRIG invites members to submit questions in advance of each event and those that are chosen are put to the experts. Audience members are given the opportunity to ask the questions themselves as well as follow up. This allows for interactive and engaging sessions with local authorities and the supply chain hearing first-hand from the DfT.

The way in which roads are designed, maintained and inspected has stayed the same for many years. Many local authorities are facing an increasing squeeze on budgets and remain risk averse when it comes to trailing new ways of doing things. Safety though remains a number one priority for councils and they must regularly inspect the roads they’re responsible for by way of statutory obligation. The way in which these inspections are done can be time consuming, but they are vital for keeping roads safe and provide authorities with critical evidence necessary for defending against claims. Technology can play an important role in advancing how these inspections are carried out and help move the sector away from traditional approaches. Capturing data which highlights safety defects across inspection routes can support decisions made by safety inspectors and the benefits can be even wider than this. The information can also be used to drive maintenance efficiencies which ultimately means councils can increase mobility, reduce congestion and reap the social, economic and environmental benefits of smooth, longer-lasting and safer roads.

With a £1.3bn fund allocated to the rollout of public EV charge points the installation of this infrastructure will need to be delivered at a local and national level. This will need collaboration between local highway teams, central Government and the wider energy sector for it to happen. Bringing together the relevant stakeholders to help provide guidance to local authorities on how to plan, develop and operate EV infrastructure will be key. Demand for charging points is going to increase exponentially in the next few years so it is important that local authorities don’t get left in the wilderness when it comes to the biggest revolution in road transport since the introduction of the internal combustion engine. This event allowed an opportunity for those who represent the UK EV charging sector to meet with the correct personnel from highway authorities to discuss the challenges, how they need to be overcome, and provide a course of direction.

Local authorities were given the opportunity to find out more about a project that was carried out by National Highways to evaluate various road marking products, systems and processes for removal of permanent and temporary road markings. How these principles can be applied to local roads formed part of an update from the government-owned company who are charged with operating, maintaining and improving England's motorways and major A-roads. In early 2019 National Highways launched a global competition to identify the best performing road markings and the most effective yet least destructive road marking removal systems. A webinar put on by LCRIG, featuring representatives from National Highways and others involved in the project, saw a number of topic areas discussed.

Winter services operations play an important role in ensuring that highway networks are safe and available during adverse weather conditions. In a period where local council highway authorities have less money to spend, but public expectation of the services they are responsible for remains high, it is necessary to ensure that any activity associated with winter is carefully managed. At the same time councils must keep an eye on the condition of the roads they’re responsible for. Adverse weather can clearly have an impact on this so how can local authorities ensure that the data their gathering has a direct correlation to asset management plans? The Local Council Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG) teamed up with Gaist and Safecote to deliver an exclusive webinar entitled ‘Using data to improve councils winter operations and inform asset management plans’.