The future of smart motorways

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Conekicker
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Bryn666 wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 15:18 It also doesn't help that the (c)RRRAP process is so convoluted most designers take one look at it and just decide that the entire length gets a VRS rather than risk falling foul of the techbro spreadsheet.

NH like these techbro spreadsheets, it increasingly seems to only be good for making a 2 minute job take 6 months and cost the taxpayer millions.
Things are certainly massively more complicated now than even only 10 years ago.

I recall designers regularly spending many more hours filling various forms in saying they'd correctly designed whatever it was they were designing than actually designing it. And I'm not talking about a handful of hours but many, many days. The actual design seemed to come a very poor second to the form filling, as ridiculous as that is. Needless to say, far too often what they claimed to have correctly designed was anything but - but they'd filled in the forms so everything was fine. Riiiiight.

Drawings with "Drawn by", "Checked by" and "Approved by" boxes filled in at the start of the drawings life, not the end? Very common. It wouldn't be the first time I've seen my initials in the checked or approved boxes of drawings I'd never laid eyes on before. NOT a wise thing to do, as the numpties quickly found out.

Frankly the various forms and QA procedures add the sum total of nothing to a design - you either know what you are doing or you don't. If you don't, no amount of forms will make you a competent designer.

Edit: With all the pointless forms and procedures, how will the comparatively small number of young people entering the industry actually learn how to be competent designers, if they are focussed on the BS?
Last edited by Conekicker on Wed Sep 29, 2021 21:09, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Conekicker wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 21:43
Bryn666 wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 15:18 It also doesn't help that the (c)RRRAP process is so convoluted most designers take one look at it and just decide that the entire length gets a VRS rather than risk falling foul of the techbro spreadsheet.

NH like these techbro spreadsheets, it increasingly seems to only be good for making a 2 minute job take 6 months and cost the taxpayer millions.
Things are certainly massively more complicated now than even only 10 years ago.

I recall designers regularly spending many more hours filling various forms in saying they'd correctly designed whatever it was they were designing than actually designing it. And I'm not talking about a handful of hours but many, many days. The actual design seemed to come a very poor second to the form filling, as ridiculous as that is. Needless to say, far too often what they claimed to have correctly designed was anything but - but they'd filled in the forms so everything was fine. Riiiiight.

Drawings with "Drawn by", "Checked by" and "Approved by" boxes filled in at the start of the drawings life, not the end? Very common. It wouldn't be the first time I've seen my initials in the checked or approved boxes of drawings I'd never laid eyes on before. NOT a wise thing to do, as the numpties quickly found out.

Frankly the various forms and QA procedures add the sum total of nothing to a design - you either know what you are doing or you don't. If you don't, no amount of forms will make you a competent designer.
This is my entire objection to the obsession with BIM 2.0 at the moment, all it is doing is creating reams of paperwork but there's absolutely no improvement in design quality, just hundreds more drawing numbers and fancy 3D models that will never actually work in reality.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Bryn666 wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 22:24
Conekicker wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 21:43
Bryn666 wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 15:18 It also doesn't help that the (c)RRRAP process is so convoluted most designers take one look at it and just decide that the entire length gets a VRS rather than risk falling foul of the techbro spreadsheet.

NH like these techbro spreadsheets, it increasingly seems to only be good for making a 2 minute job take 6 months and cost the taxpayer millions.
Things are certainly massively more complicated now than even only 10 years ago.

I recall designers regularly spending many more hours filling various forms in saying they'd correctly designed whatever it was they were designing than actually designing it. And I'm not talking about a handful of hours but many, many days. The actual design seemed to come a very poor second to the form filling, as ridiculous as that is. Needless to say, far too often what they claimed to have correctly designed was anything but - but they'd filled in the forms so everything was fine. Riiiiight.

Drawings with "Drawn by", "Checked by" and "Approved by" boxes filled in at the start of the drawings life, not the end? Very common. It wouldn't be the first time I've seen my initials in the checked or approved boxes of drawings I'd never laid eyes on before. NOT a wise thing to do, as the numpties quickly found out.

Frankly the various forms and QA procedures add the sum total of nothing to a design - you either know what you are doing or you don't. If you don't, no amount of forms will make you a competent designer.
This is my entire objection to the obsession with BIM 2.0 at the moment, all it is doing is creating reams of paperwork but there's absolutely no improvement in design quality, just hundreds more drawing numbers and fancy 3D models that will never actually work in reality.
BIM - a complete con-job. There's absolutely no way it can ever be any more than 80% accurate when applied to an existing road environment, far too many existing features can never be accurately located. I well recall in my early days on the motorways, a comms cable snaking along the verge on pretty much the same alignment as the safety fencing. In many of the concrete footings for the Z posts, the cable was embedded in the concrete. Not a split duct in sight. BIM that.

3D models of improvement schemes - very pretty graphics to impress the client whilst bearing little to no resemblance to reality.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Another inquiry.

https://news.knowledia.com/GB/en/articl ... 1c5c3d5a6d

One muses what the outcome of this one will be.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Conekicker wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 08:21 Another inquiry.

https://news.knowledia.com/GB/en/articl ... 1c5c3d5a6d

One muses what the outcome of this one will be.
Highways England procurement bought a product that doesn't work, their engineers are really bad, or the gangs failed to install it properly. Quelle surprise?
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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DB617 wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 19:08 Highways England procurement bought a product that doesn't work, their engineers are really bad, or the gangs failed to install it properly. Quelle surprise?
The thing is, for such safety critical kit you'd think it would be maintained in-house. Whereas it's maintained by contractors who come and go every few years. Yes, many of the contractor's staff TUPE to whoever wins the next contract but, ignoring the quality part of the bid, (which often carries a farmyard whiff about it), the contracts tend to be awarded on who is cheapest. We'll also ignore the fact the NH Contract's Section are sometimes found wanting in the contracts they turn out, with bidders/contractors looking for loopholes they can exploit commercially. We'll also ignore the level of site supervision of the work these days, which given that contractors are trusted to self-certify their work, is a not insignificant part of the problem. Especially when the NH guys overlooking this work tend not to be specialists with hands-on experience of the kit.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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One wonders, then, whether a Government inquiry may uncover these issues or just 'reveal the need for more highly paid directors to supervise'.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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DB617 wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 19:08
Conekicker wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 08:21 Another inquiry.

https://news.knowledia.com/GB/en/articl ... 1c5c3d5a6d

One muses what the outcome of this one will be.
Highways England procurement bought a product that doesn't work, their engineers are really bad, or the gangs failed to install it properly. Quelle surprise?
Decisions are normally made by project managers, very few of which are engineers.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Bomag wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 12:28
DB617 wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 19:08
Conekicker wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 08:21 Another inquiry.

https://news.knowledia.com/GB/en/articl ... 1c5c3d5a6d

One muses what the outcome of this one will be.
Highways England procurement bought a product that doesn't work, their engineers are really bad, or the gangs failed to install it properly. Quelle surprise?
Decisions are normally made by project managers, very few of which are engineers.
...and these days, should the powers that be see sense and decide that PMs should be engineers, where would they get them from?

He asked rhetorically. The national skills shortage is going to really bite over the next few years, as skilled people leave the industry and we're left increasingly in the "capable" hands of "competent" and "trustworthy" contractors.
Patience is not a virtue - it's a concept invented by the dozy beggars who are unable to think quickly enough.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Conekicker wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 14:09
Bomag wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 12:28
DB617 wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 19:08

Highways England procurement bought a product that doesn't work, their engineers are really bad, or the gangs failed to install it properly. Quelle surprise?
Decisions are normally made by project managers, very few of which are engineers.
...and these days, should the powers that be see sense and decide that PMs should be engineers, where would they get them from?

He asked rhetorically. The national skills shortage is going to really bite over the next few years, as skilled people leave the industry and we're left increasingly in the "capable" hands of "competent" and "trustworthy" contractors.
To quote a director from a company I used to work for... "I'll be retired before it's a problem".
Bryn
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She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.

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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Conekicker wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 14:09
Bomag wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 12:28
DB617 wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 19:08

Highways England procurement bought a product that doesn't work, their engineers are really bad, or the gangs failed to install it properly. Quelle surprise?
Decisions are normally made by project managers, very few of which are engineers.
...and these days, should the powers that be see sense and decide that PMs should be engineers, where would they get them from?

He asked rhetorically. The national skills shortage is going to really bite over the next few years, as skilled people leave the industry and we're left increasingly in the "capable" hands of "competent" and "trustworthy" contractors.
This is not just an issue with roads, it exists in many industries. I spent most of my working life until I retired at the end of 2016 as an engineer in the process and power industries and my employers resisted letting me retire early as finding a replacement of ay sort was hard enough but finding one who was experienced was all but impossible. The guy who was drafted in from our Athens office met the requirements but of course he has now gone back to one of the offices in the EU. Given that its a US company they have basically closed the UK development and support office leaving just a bunch of salesmen and accountants in London. I believe most of the work is now being done in Vilnius.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Bryn666 wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 14:16
Conekicker wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 14:09
Bomag wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 12:28

Decisions are normally made by project managers, very few of which are engineers.
...and these days, should the powers that be see sense and decide that PMs should be engineers, where would they get them from?

He asked rhetorically. The national skills shortage is going to really bite over the next few years, as skilled people leave the industry and we're left increasingly in the "capable" hands of "competent" and "trustworthy" contractors.
To quote a director from a company I used to work for... "I'll be retired before it's a problem".
And therein lies the main problem. Senior management don't care about the long term, only this years profits.
Patience is not a virtue - it's a concept invented by the dozy beggars who are unable to think quickly enough.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Conekicker wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 16:48
Bryn666 wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 14:16
Conekicker wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 14:09 ...and these days, should the powers that be see sense and decide that PMs should be engineers, where would they get them from?

He asked rhetorically. The national skills shortage is going to really bite over the next few years, as skilled people leave the industry and we're left increasingly in the "capable" hands of "competent" and "trustworthy" contractors.
To quote a director from a company I used to work for... "I'll be retired before it's a problem".
And therein lies the main problem. Senior management don't care about the long term, only this years profits.
It must take a certain mindset to get to the very top, because I consider myself quite capable and with a lot of potential, but also morally centred and would be unhappy to live out my retirement from a company I contributed to, watching my failure to account for the future ruin everything I had done. I couldn't go home with a considerable severance package, watch my service users and successors suffer and fail, and still think that I did well. To an extent I understand looking after #1, but that and doing a good job do not have to be mutually exclusive. I suspect many SABRE members are in the same boat, but none of us with moral foibles are likely to ever make it to decision guiding level, it seems.

I wonder what went wrong that most of a generation of people working in the built environment, with all the permanence and irreversibility it represents, don't appreciate that part of their role. Just bung something in and move on - it'll only be broken and in this case cost lives and reputations for the next 20 years. Not my job mate. Except it's entirely your job. :roll:
Last edited by DB617 on Thu Sep 30, 2021 16:59, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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DB617 wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 16:57
Conekicker wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 16:48
Bryn666 wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 14:16

To quote a director from a company I used to work for... "I'll be retired before it's a problem".
And therein lies the main problem. Senior management don't care about the long term, only this years profits.
It must take a certain mindset to get to the very top, because I consider myself quite capable and with a lot of potential, but also morally centred and would be unhappy to live out my retirement from a company I contributed to, watching my failure to account for the future ruin everything I had done. I couldn't go home with a considerable severance package, watch my service users and successors suffer and fail, and still think that I did well. To an extent I understand looking after #1, but that and doing a good job do not have to be mutually exclusive...
I believe the phrase you want is "**** floats to the top" :wink:
Bryn
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She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.

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Re: The future of smart motorways

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DB617 wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 16:57
Conekicker wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 16:48
Bryn666 wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 14:16

To quote a director from a company I used to work for... "I'll be retired before it's a problem".
And therein lies the main problem. Senior management don't care about the long term, only this years profits.
It must take a certain mindset to get to the very top, because I consider myself quite capable and with a lot of potential, but also morally centred and would be unhappy to live out my retirement from a company I contributed to, watching my failure to account for the future ruin everything I had done. I couldn't go home with a considerable severance package, watch my service users and successors suffer and fail, and still think that I did well. To an extent I understand looking after #1, but that and doing a good job do not have to be mutually exclusive. I suspect many SABRE members are in the same boat, but none of us with moral foibles are likely to ever make it to decision guiding level, it seems.

I wonder what went wrong that most of a generation of people working in the built environment, with all the permanence and irreversibility it represents, don't appreciate that part of their role. Just bung something in and move on - it'll only be broken and in this case cost lives and reputations for the next 20 years. Not my job mate. Except it's entirely your job. :roll:
When I moved from the public to the private sector, I was surprised that as much as possible to make motorway pavements last as long as possible wasn't being done. I suggested to one of the directors that we should be using geogrids to reinforce the asphalt.

I was told that such material wasn't in DMRB and also why should we, as a commercial organisation, want our work to last longer? To make a surface last for 15 or 20 years, when we were replacing it roughly every 10 would do us out of business. And that was the end of that suggestion.
Patience is not a virtue - it's a concept invented by the dozy beggars who are unable to think quickly enough.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Conekicker wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 17:13
I was told that such material wasn't in DMRB and also why should we, as a commercial organisation, want our work to last longer? To make a surface last for 15 or 20 years, when we were replacing it roughly every 10 would do us out of business. And that was the end of that suggestion.
Imagine thinking that was business sense. Instead of a rolling program of resurfacing the entire network, the 'businessman' would prefer to see most of it left undone while you repeatedly work on the same section. There can't be that much contractor competition out there that if that one stretch isn't constantly breaking down, your company would be out of business.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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The real question is why the customer, (council or HE) doesn't specify more durable material.

Time to get back to Hot Rolled Asphalt !
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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DB617 wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 17:15
Conekicker wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 17:13
I was told that such material wasn't in DMRB and also why should we, as a commercial organisation, want our work to last longer? To make a surface last for 15 or 20 years, when we were replacing it roughly every 10 would do us out of business. And that was the end of that suggestion.
Imagine thinking that was business sense. Instead of a rolling program of resurfacing the entire network, the 'businessman' would prefer to see most of it left undone while you repeatedly work on the same section. There can't be that much contractor competition out there that if that one stretch isn't constantly breaking down, your company would be out of business.
Except we were doing, more or less, a rolling programme, resurfacing 3-ish km of motorway one year, then moving on to the next 3-ish km the next year and so on. Eventually we would have gone back to the beginning and started again. At 3km per year, plenty of schemes to keep people employed.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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Bryn666 wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 16:59
DB617 wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 16:57
Conekicker wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 16:48 And therein lies the main problem. Senior management don't care about the long term, only this years profits.
It must take a certain mindset to get to the very top, because I consider myself quite capable and with a lot of potential, but also morally centred and would be unhappy to live out my retirement from a company I contributed to, watching my failure to account for the future ruin everything I had done. I couldn't go home with a considerable severance package, watch my service users and successors suffer and fail, and still think that I did well. To an extent I understand looking after #1, but that and doing a good job do not have to be mutually exclusive...
I believe the phrase you want is "**** floats to the top" :wink:
Quite. As a percentage, there's no way many of the directors I've come across over the years could ever be considered Mr. Nice Guy.

Mr. Here Comes The Bar Steward Now would fit many of them far more accurately.
Patience is not a virtue - it's a concept invented by the dozy beggars who are unable to think quickly enough.
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Re: The future of smart motorways

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fras wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 17:52 The real question is why the customer, (council or HE) doesn't specify more durable material.

Time to get back to Hot Rolled Asphalt !
Please no. As a resident of Bristol who lives within audible range of the A4174 (constant roaring) please no.
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