A9 dualling

[Chris Bertram]

Cancelling the A9 dualling isn’t going to do anything to help the environment but rather it’ll just be a monumental waste of money. People will still drive to Inverness and freight will still hurtle up and down in hundreds of HGVs every day regardless of the greens whining and sulking and throwing their teddy over the budget.

Someone should produce an analysis of police investigation costs every time there’s a collision or closure on the A9. Usually due to a failed overtake, or similar.

Add it all up, and bang, after 2 years you might even have enough money for an upgrade.

Cost of A9 dualling : circa £3 billion : https://www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk/The- ... o-end/4406
Cost of not dualling the A9 : circa naff all compared to £3 billion.
Cost of police accident investigation costs on the A9 : circa not very much at all compared to £3 billion.

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not arguing for the cancellation of dualling the A9, but come on, let's get a little bit real about the very large cost of the project.

I think you missed the cost of each accident/incident that causes disruption *at the time*, as opposed to the subsequent plod investigation. Not to mention the impact on health services from injuries arising from said accidents/incidents.

[cb a1]

Someone should produce an analysis of police investigation costs every time there’s a collision or closure on the A9. Usually due to a failed overtake, or similar.

You'll never believe this, but that is exactly the analysis that the government undertook to justify the project (along with a host of other impacts)!

The A9 Dualling is estimated to deliver road safety benefits in the order of £343.8m.

Those savings will be over a 60 year period and I would presume at 2010 values and prices.

IIRC, the most common accident type on the A9 is due to drivers falling asleep and are single vehicle accidents. Whilst the dualling won't prevent these from happening in the future (and may actually increase the likelihood), a modern road design ought to significantly reduce the severity of such accidents.

[orudge]

From an environmental perspective, the Sheriffhall grade separation will surely reduce emissions and pollution in the vicinity of the present roundabout, and hence be better for the environment!

Also, we're all meant to be driving electric vehicles in the next 10/15/20 years, depending on who you ask, and they're still going to need roads to drive on...

[A9NWIL]

Am I wrong to be incensed by the wanton destruction of any road-related projects in the name of 'Green' policy? I believe wholeheartedly that we have a climate emergency but from an engineering standpoint, apart from a certain level of induced demand in certain areas like the Bristol-Newport-Cardiff belt, random smashing up and throwing away of road building initiatives isn't inherently 'Green'. It's just lipservice. Currently the Greens can't get an integrated, holistic sustainability policy through because they have very little hard power, so they settle for occasionally wrecking a dualling or pinch point project that would actually reduce polluting congestion in a local area. I rarely hear of them actually achieving positives like the Scottish and UK Governments have such as driving huge increases in wind and solar power, electrifying railways and (slowly) replacing 80s rolling stock, or rolling out EV incentives. What is their actual raison d'etre other than as wreckers?

Safe to say if the Scottish Greens policy was applied to Gloucestershire, for instance, the Air Balloon roundabout and the A417 smoggy traffic jam cutting its way daily across the Cotswolds would be here to stay, as some sort of pernicious punishment for the evil car drivers.

It comes up with their energy policy, too; they want to remove the fossil fuel element from the national grid, but do they have a reasonable alternative base load suggestion? No, of course not, they're also anti-nuclear in any form. Reactionaries and rabble rousers damage the clout of any party, and I have no doubt if we weren't seeing the terrifying effects of climate change, the Greens would be a thoroughly off putting group of politicians at present, for practical reasons.

You raise very good points about the greens, they are wrecking their own agenda by stopping these road projects, instead of saying can we do X Y and Z if you do to mitigate pollution from increased demand.

[A9NWIL]

From an environmental perspective, the Sheriffhall grade separation will surely reduce emissions and pollution in the vicinity of the present roundabout, and hence be better for the environment!

Also, we're all meant to be driving electric vehicles in the next 10/15/20 years, depending on who you ask, and they're still going to need roads to drive on...

Good point will the greens finally drop anti roads when the amount of electric or alternative fuel cars (to ICE) tips over the 50% mark as it ultimately will in time.

[KeithW]

IIRC, the most common accident type on the A9 is due to drivers falling asleep and are single vehicle accidents. Whilst the dualling won't prevent these from happening in the future (and may actually increase the likelihood), a modern road design ought to significantly reduce the severity of such accidents.

If nothing else it should greatly reduce the number of head on collisions from cross over accidents.

[owen b]

Cancelling the A9 dualling isn’t going to do anything to help the environment but rather it’ll just be a monumental waste of money. People will still drive to Inverness and freight will still hurtle up and down in hundreds of HGVs every day regardless of the greens whining and sulking and throwing their teddy over the budget.

Someone should produce an analysis of police investigation costs every time there’s a collision or closure on the A9. Usually due to a failed overtake, or similar.

Add it all up, and bang, after 2 years you might even have enough money for an upgrade.

Cost of A9 dualling : circa £3 billion : https://www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk/The- ... o-end/4406
Cost of not dualling the A9 : circa naff all compared to £3 billion.
Cost of police accident investigation costs on the A9 : circa not very much at all compared to £3 billion.

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not arguing for the cancellation of dualling the A9, but come on, let's get a little bit real about the very large cost of the project.

I think you missed the cost of each accident/incident that causes disruption *at the time*, as opposed to the subsequent plod investigation. Not to mention the impact on health services from injuries arising from said accidents/incidents.

Answered in effect by cb a1. Road safety benefits of £343.8m over 60 years. Investment cost circa £3 billion. You don't need to be a qualified management accountant to appreciate that in financial terms the investment costs are circa an order of magnitude greater than the safety benefits and over a very long timescale. Which is what I was driving at in the first place. Of course I'm sure there are plenty of other benefits that were considered in the case for the investment, but A9 dualling doesn't come remotely close to being financially justified on road safety benefits alone.

[jackal]

IIRC the total benefits (safety and everything else combined) were significantly less than costs, so Transport Scotland invented bespoke benefits like 'reduced driver frustration' as an ad hoc justification for the SNP's pet project. Not that this has anything to do with the Greens' opposition - they want to spoil economically sound schemes like Sherriffhall as well.

[cb a1]

IIRC the total benefits (safety and everything else combined) were significantly less than costs, so Transport Scotland invented bespoke benefits like 'reduced driver frustration' as an ad hoc justification for the SNP's pet project. Not that this has anything to do with the Greens' opposition - they want to spoil economically sound schemes like Sherriffhall as well.

Driver frustration due to lack of overtaking opportunities was an identified problem. The role of appraisal is to evaluate what impact a scheme will have on a problem. It wasn't 'invented'. Transport Scotland could have chosen not to evaluate the fiscal benefits of reducing the driver frustration, but given it was a straightforward task to calculate the benefits, it would seem silly to me not to quantify those benefits.

The A9 dualling is a project that has very strong cross-party support (apart from the Green Party of course); I would suggest it is more of a Holyrood* pet project rather than the SNP.

*i.e. if funding was not devolved this would never have got past the bean counters in Westminster.

Road safety benefits of £343.8m over 60 years. Investment cost circa £3 billion.

Not that this changes your observation, but it's only fair that if the accident savings are expressed in 2010 values and prices that this should be compared to the scheme cost also expressed in the same units which is £1.9 billion at 2010 values and prices.

[Nwallace]

So if the Budget was lost... you could end up with Theresa May-style deadlock?? And no way out...

Worse than that.
Scottish councils have to legally produce a budget by the 11th of March; otherwise they can't spend money.
So the Scottish government have to have a budget in place before the 11th of March to allow the councils to spend money.
It also affects all Public Sector spending and pay in one way or another.

We're talking about something painfully close to a US style Government shut down.

[Nwallace]

From an environmental perspective, the Sheriffhall grade separation will surely reduce emissions and pollution in the vicinity of the present roundabout, and hence be better for the environment!

Also, we're all meant to be driving electric vehicles in the next 10/15/20 years, depending on who you ask, and they're still going to need roads to drive on...

THey did this with the Tay Road Bridge tolls;
"Pollution in Dundee City Centre will go up because there will be more cars"
In reality pollution went down because there was 100% less cars idling on the ramps and approach roads.

[tommym8]

A lot of money has already been spent. Thats gone and not building it won’t bring it back.

And that's a sunk cost. One of the first and most basic principles of investment appraisal is that only future costs and benefits are relevant. Even backing off the money that's already spent, the remaining cost must be the best part of £3 billion, the cost of not going ahead must be naff all in comparison.

The Scottish government is desperately keen on immigration. The desire is to add around 1m to the population over the next 50 years or so. This will require a huge amount of new housing which it would struggle to provide in the central belt. Infrastructure like the A9 will help to locate these new developments in areas that could do with "new blood".

Sometimes roads are built for a lot more reasons than are promulgated at the time.

[Nwallace]

IIRC, the most common accident type on the A9 is due to drivers falling asleep and are single vehicle accidents. Whilst the dualling won't prevent these from happening in the future (and may actually increase the likelihood), a modern road design ought to significantly reduce the severity of such accidents.

If nothing else it should greatly reduce the number of head on collisions from cross over accidents.

There has been a couple of high profile sleeping driver crashes in recent years; neither of which were single vehicle accidents.
The first was when two lorries travelling in opposite directions crashed on the section between Drummochter and Bruar;
IIRC both drivers killed and the entire area covered by Menzies Inverness depot went without papers that day because they were in one of the lorries.

And the other was at Ballinluig when a lorry driver fell asleep and wiped out the occupants of a vehicle stopped in the lay-by on the left just after the bridge.

Wrong Side and at grade crossing accidents only really get reported on at the time of the closure along with the usual "Killer Road" headline in the papers.
Possibly because there's no one alive to prosecute and the Procurator Fiscal doesn't decide it needs an FAI.
Given the powers an FAI has... maybe they should.

A lot of money has already been spent. Thats gone and not building it won’t bring it back.

And that's a sunk cost. One of the first and most basic principles of investment appraisal is that only future costs and benefits are relevant. Even backing off the money that's already spent, the remaining cost must be the best part of £3 billion, the cost of not going ahead must be naff all in comparison.

The Scottish government is desperately keen on immigration. The desire is to add around 1m to the population over the next 50 years or so. This will require a huge amount of new housing which it would struggle to provide in the central belt. Infrastructure like the A9 will help to locate these new developments in areas that could do with "new blood".

Sometimes roads are built for a lot more reasons than are promulgated at the time.

There's also the regional element of it; funding the Highlands population stability/growth through improved transport links.

We're talking about a road that some people refuse to drive, that in itself has an economic value.

[owen b]

Road safety benefits of £343.8m over 60 years. Investment cost circa £3 billion.

Not that this changes your observation, but it's only fair that if the accident savings are expressed in 2010 values and prices that this should be compared to the scheme cost also expressed in the same units which is £1.9 billion at 2010 values and prices.

Yes, fair enough of course, thanks for the better info. Always better to have an apples vs. apples financial comparison . So looking at the costs and benefits discounted to 2010 values, the investment cost is over five times the safety benefit.

On a different but related point, I'd be interested to see the effect of the subsequent safety improvements on the existing A9 on the financial case for the upgrade. My experience of the HGV speed limit increase and the safety cameras is that there's much less overtaking on S2 sections, and very much less dangerous overtaking. So given that safety appears to have improved, the further financial benefits of the dualling project from a safety point of view are presumably less than when the project was first appraised.

[tommym8]

IIRC, the most common accident type on the A9 is due to drivers falling asleep and are single vehicle accidents. Whilst the dualling won't prevent these from happening in the future (and may actually increase the likelihood), a modern road design ought to significantly reduce the severity of such accidents.

If nothing else it should greatly reduce the number of head on collisions from cross over accidents.

There has been a couple of high profile sleeping driver crashes in recent years; neither of which were single vehicle accidents.
The first was when two lorries travelling in opposite directions crashed on the section between Drummochter and Bruar;
IIRC both drivers killed and the entire area covered by Menzies Inverness depot went without papers that day because they were in one of the lorries.

And the other was at Ballinluig when a lorry driver fell asleep and wiped out the occupants of a vehicle stopped in the lay-by on the left just after the bridge.

Wrong Side and at grade crossing accidents only really get reported on at the time of the closure along with the usual "Killer Road" headline in the papers.
Possibly because there's no one alive to prosecute and the Procurator Fiscal doesn't decide it needs an FAI.
Given the powers an FAI has... maybe they should.

And that's a sunk cost. One of the first and most basic principles of investment appraisal is that only future costs and benefits are relevant. Even backing off the money that's already spent, the remaining cost must be the best part of £3 billion, the cost of not going ahead must be naff all in comparison.

The Scottish government is desperately keen on immigration. The desire is to add around 1m to the population over the next 50 years or so. This will require a huge amount of new housing which it would struggle to provide in the central belt. Infrastructure like the A9 will help to locate these new developments in areas that could do with "new blood".

Sometimes roads are built for a lot more reasons than are promulgated at the time.

There's also the regional element of it; funding the Highlands population stability/growth through improved transport links.

We're talking about a road that some people refuse to drive, that in itself has an economic value.

Governments don't always divulge the bigger picture when big infrastructure projects are being proposed as it only gives potential opponents of the scheme ammunition.

[jackal]

IIRC the total benefits (safety and everything else combined) were significantly less than costs, so Transport Scotland invented bespoke benefits like 'reduced driver frustration' as an ad hoc justification for the SNP's pet project. Not that this has anything to do with the Greens' opposition - they want to spoil economically sound schemes like Sherriffhall as well.

Driver frustration due to lack of overtaking opportunities was an identified problem. The role of appraisal is to evaluate what impact a scheme will have on a problem. It wasn't 'invented'. Transport Scotland could have chosen not to evaluate the fiscal benefits of reducing the driver frustration, but given it was a straightforward task to calculate the benefits, it would seem silly to me not to quantify those benefits.

There is no 'fiscal benefit' to the reduced driver frustration. It is just the sensation in someone's head. Fiscal benefits, safety benefits, etc, were already captured under other headings.

Now I'm not in principle opposed to adding such hedonistic benefits, but if so it should be in good faith and across all projects, not as a politically expedient workaround for an uneconomical pet project. It's simple good governance to apply assessment criteria consistently.

[cb a1]

There is no 'fiscal benefit' to the reduced driver frustration. It is just the sensation in someone's head. Fiscal benefits, safety benefits, etc, were already captured under other headings.

Now I'm not in principle opposed to adding such hedonistic benefits, but if so it should be in good faith and across all projects, not as a politically expedient workaround for an uneconomical pet project. It's simple good governance to apply assessment criteria consistently.

Can I suggest researching how many of the components of road safety and non-work value of time benefits are calcuated. They are done on the broadly the same 'willingness to pay' methodology as for driver frustration.

Very few assessment criteria are applied consistently across all projects. It would be massively disproportionate to undertake such an approach. It's also not the case that decisions to proceed with projects are based solely on the value for money outputs based around transport appraisal guidance (irrespective of which nations version is being used). All major decisions on what to invest taxpayers money on are ultimately political rather than technical.

[jackal]

There is no 'fiscal benefit' to the reduced driver frustration. It is just the sensation in someone's head. Fiscal benefits, safety benefits, etc, were already captured under other headings.

Now I'm not in principle opposed to adding such hedonistic benefits, but if so it should be in good faith and across all projects, not as a politically expedient workaround for an uneconomical pet project. It's simple good governance to apply assessment criteria consistently.

Can I suggest researching how many of the components of road safety and non-work value of time benefits are calcuated. They are done on the broadly the same 'willingness to pay' methodology as for driver frustration.

None of that makes them fiscal. Can I suggest researching a dictionary

[Berk]

A frustrated driver attempts a risky overtake, causes a collision, and a 12-hour investigation (and full closure of the A9) follows.

How can that not be said to have financial impacts?? Add up the number of (repeated) occurrences and it could turn fiscal too.

[jackal]

Yes but as I said all that is already in the regular model. The 'innovation' is to add the sensation of frustration itself as a disbenefit.