National Highways signals bold new approach to roadworks

[A303Chris]

This press release has appeared today which is the latest National Highways approach to undertaking roadworks including more full time closures.

They believe this is better than months and months of roadworks. However suggesting that closing the A11/A47 Thickthorn junction for 9 days to compete all the proposed improvement works is a bit far fetched.

They say these will be done at quiet times, but we have endured 3 years of weekend closures on the M4 and that has not gone any faster. Then last year they closed the M4 between J13 and J14 on the first two weekends of the summer holidays when air travel was still restricted!!!

Call me a cynic but this to me shows how out of touch Whitehall are with the real world outside London!

[Herned]

The Netherlands have changed their approach to this sort of thing. They through as much resource as possible at jobs to get them done in as short a time as possible, whole proper widening done in less than a year, new motorway junctions in months rather than years etc.

[Bomag]

This press release has appeared today which is the latest National Highways approach to undertaking roadworks including more full time closures.

Call me a cynic but this to me shows how out of touch Whitehall are with the real world outside London!

It's a long time since anybody from HE/NH asset side worked inside the M25.

Somebody in MP finally read TSM Chapter 8 Part 3:2020, it took them three years to start doing highest safe speed. In terms of full closures, if you have a suitable diversion route then it is safer and sometimes less disruption to do a full closure for several days (and save a shed load of cash). The problems is that there are to many overnight closures with dodgy signed diversion routes just to make it easier for the contractor which gives this a bad name.

As for the blessed A11/A47 junction AFAIK the plan is to prefabricate all the elements which would otherwise need an overnight closure and squeaky narrow lanes and move/lift in place on the 9 day closure.

[Bryn666]

They did this on the M180. It went badly.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/m180 ... acing-work
https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/updat ... e-of-m180/

So no, full daytime closures of motorways does not help keep "customers" moving. The last time there was a closure of the M65 here due to an RTC, the entire Blackburn area ground to a halt.

Why do NH think these motorways were built in the first place? It stands to reason that if the reason they exist was to take traffic off an unsuitable adjacent A road, forcing the entire motorway back onto the A road will be nothing but disastrous. It always is.

Once again we see NH doing things for the convenience of TM contractors and their spreadsheets (not shuffling cones and signs around) rather than the travelling public. In the NW they now just put up signs saying "we only work nights" and leave all the TM in place.

[Bomag]

They did this on the M180. It went badly.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/m180 ... acing-work
https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/updat ... e-of-m180/

So no, full daytime closures of motorways does not help keep "customers" moving.

Why do NH think these motorways were built in the first place? It stands to reason that if the reason they exist was to take traffic off an unsuitable adjacent A road, forcing the entire motorway back onto the A road will be nothing but disastrous. It always is.

The bit in italics may have been true in the 60's and 70's but the wider UK network can in many cases take motorway flows if well planned in advance. The problem is that there are many poor choices by those without sufficient knowledge. In the case of the M180 it was a poor design linked with ill-informed management. The M42 closure in December is much less widely known but then apart from some advance notice signing it was generally well planned and effective, even for as HS2 job.

[skiddaw05]

A closure of the entire Thickthorn junction for 9 days is an interesting concept, the A47 could be sent on its former route along the ring road but the A11 would have to be diverted much further away because you won't be able to use the old A11 (B1172) from Wymondham as it also goes through to the Thickthorn junction. So no doubt this would cause a fair bit of disruption

But balanced against this is the royal pain in the backside which is the current A11 contraflow, which has another year to go. This isn't comparing like for like as the A11 roadworks are much more extensive and could not be completed in 9 days however you went about it, but even so it does make the idea of getting Thickthorn out of the way as quickly as possible more attractive and there's plenty of notice before it starts (due early next year)

[SteveA30]

Then last year they closed the M4 between J13 and J14 on the first two weekends of the summer holidays when air travel was still restricted!!!

I know it was brilliant er, I mean, it's a disgrace!

"a new approach to diversion routes, with a customer-focused toolkit issued to project teams and new signs due to be trialled on the network"

A crucial part of that new approach needs to be liasing with the LA's in each area, to alter the sequencing of traffic lights and banning parking through the use of yellow cones. Both of these are bottlenecks on old roads that pre-bypass, had few or no lights and double yellow lines throughout. Ilminster, Okehampton, Thornbury, Hook, Bagshot amongst others would flow much better if the LA's would adopt a more pro-active role in planned diversions. Even unplanned ones, ie accidents, could benefit from an emergency plan. Alter light phasing remotely via cams (I'm advocating use of CCTV? ) or, manually at the location. Doesn't work for everywhere of course. The A4 congestion was simply weight of traffic, junctions at A34 and A338 don't have lights but still couldn't cope.

[Keiji]

The Netherlands have changed their approach to this sort of thing. They through as much resource as possible at jobs to get them done in as short a time as possible, whole proper widening done in less than a year, new motorway junctions in months rather than years etc.

This is what we need.

I'm pretty sure Japan works similarly. From what I've seen they always have lots of surplus workers available on just about any job. A lot of the time this will mean they seem to be just "standing around watching the work being done" but it's actually part of their training. Then when they suddenly need extra resource for something unanticipated, it's available right there and they don't have to suffer a delay.

Here not only do we generally assign the minimum number of staff possible but we throw in oodles of spare time in planning where it's intended that nothing gets done, so that when the inevitable delays happen, they can hopefully be caught up on (but often still aren't).

[M4 Cardiff]

As long as such closures were very well publicised well in advance, and I don't just mean VMS notices, but press releases to go onto major news outlets as required, there may be some benefit to this, depending on the feasibility of diversion routes.

Could it also be cheaper?

[jnty]

It's an approach that has been used on the railways for decades but of course there are different considerations there. Certainly something to be said for the idea that you can more likely avoid travelling for a specific week than you can, say, every weekend or evening for a year.

As was said above you can also take extraordinary measures along the diversion route to increase capacity and minimise impact like banning parking, closing/reconfiguring junctions etc. You can't really do that for closures that are smeared throughout the year.

Urban streets are different but the long term closure of Leith Street in Edinburgh a few years ago was accompanied by the introduction of a temporary gyratory system on the diversion route and a road closure on another alternative route to increase green time for other legs. Allegedly this actually resulted in a net increase of capacity through the corridor.

[DB617]

As long as such closures were very well publicised well in advance, and I don't just mean VMS notices, but press releases to go onto major news outlets as required, there may be some benefit to this, depending on the feasibility of diversion routes.

Could it also be cheaper?

Almost certainly... TM is ludicrously expensive. Even a large network of TM to keep the ex-motorway traffic flowing around the diversion would be cheaper for a few days than years of it on the motorway.

[SteveA30]

I had noticed that the Police had stopped putting out cones in Ilminster for diversions in the 2000's. Until then, they had been very quick to put them out along the parking areas, during the days of WS2, when accidents were very frequent. I emailed them to find out and a helpful reply gave a phone number for the local police station. The chap there said that they no longer had to cover that kind of job and that the yellow cones were sold to Bridgwater Carnival Committee! That is why Ilminster locks solid when a crash occurs on the bypass now. If NH are serious about improved div management, they must either take responsibility for the route or, have the power to force LA's to do something to assist, such as altering light sequencing and stopping parking. The lack of any involvement is obvious at the many.....many divs I have witnessed. Drivers just left in the lurch, an occasional police car forcing its way through on the blues and disappearing, probably tea break time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN0or8UPJM4

[darkcape]

For Thickthorn, I believe the plan involves prefabricated a large concrete box for the free flow slips offline, then jacking them into place, which is what the 9 days is for. To do otherwise would involve lots of temporary layouts dragging on for years.

Construction is evolving, structures around existing assets are getting more complex & techniques change to keep up. The railway has been doing this for years & now highways is catching up. A lot of a project's cost is time - quicker you complete the job, cheaper it is, so these options are attractive to NH.

With enough advance warning & robust plan in place the closures can go smoothly. The M42 was already shut for a week in 2021 and largely passed without incident.

[XC70]

They did this on the M180. It went badly.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/m180 ... acing-work
https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/updat ... e-of-m180/

So no, full daytime closures of motorways does not help keep "customers" moving. The last time there was a closure of the M65 here due to an RTC, the entire Blackburn area ground to a halt.

Why do NH think these motorways were built in the first place? It stands to reason that if the reason they exist was to take traffic off an unsuitable adjacent A road, forcing the entire motorway back onto the A road will be nothing but disastrous. It always is.

Once again we see NH doing things for the convenience of TM contractors and their spreadsheets (not shuffling cones and signs around) rather than the travelling public. In the NW they now just put up signs saying "we only work nights" and leave all the TM in place.

I am glad you brought that up. I remember it clearly. It absolutely crippled my business during the closure. Scunthorpe just ground to a halt (as did most of North Lincs). I even ended up doing an interview on BBC Radio Humberside about it.

There was no viable diversion, they ended up trying to shove 6 lanes of Motorway traffic over the A18 Trent crossing which is S2 for cars, but essentially S1 for the trucks as 2 of them can't pass on the tight 90 degree approach. By day 2 they sent traffic Wombles to do traffic control on the bridge, only allowing one line of traffic at a time. iirc I think they then bailed out and announced the cancelling of the closure by the end of day 2, opening a lane on the motorway by day 3 of the planned 5 day closure........

The decision to close the entire motorway for 5 days was just a moronic decision that anyone with the faintest understanding of the local roads would have realised was a disaster.

[Chris5156]

Construction is evolving, structures around existing assets are getting more complex & techniques change to keep up. The railway has been doing this for years & now highways is catching up. A lot of a project's cost is time - quicker you complete the job, cheaper it is, so these options are attractive to NH.

I'm sorry but I really struggle to agree with this.

I understand that it makes things easier, cheaper and probably safer for those doing the construction work. That's fine. However, completing construction/maintenance as easily and cheaply as possible is not the only object of the exercise. Roads and railways exist to get people from A to B and shutting them down for extended periods is shutting down a public service that people rely on. The railway likes railway closures, but it seems to me that the public do not - they are an absolute pain and they drive people away from train travel. Just because Network Rail has been getting away with sticking two fingers up to the travelling public every bank holiday weekend doesn't mean this is a terrific example for National Highways to follow.

An extended closure of several days might be the right solution for a particularly difficult job where there is no reasonable alternative. I don't think I can get behind it as "business as usual". It would be a decision made entirely for the convenience of NH and their contractors.

With enough advance warning & robust plan in place the closures can go smoothly. The M42 was already shut for a week in 2021 and largely passed without incident.

Yes, one closure happening as a one-off between Christmas and New Year is survivable. But if this becomes business as usual are we looking at it happening at multiple locations nationwide every Christmas, Easter and August bank holiday. Combine that with half the railway network being switched off every weekend and bank holiday and you won't be able to get anywhere! As someone who doesn't work Monday to Friday 9 to 5, and who can't work from home, my journey to work is already screwed over by the railway companies every few weekends and I'm damned if I'm going to nod and smile while NH close off half the trunk road network too!

I realise that NH's press release talks about this being "considered" for some schemes where it will replace three years of lane closures and lower speed limits with a single week-long closure. That's fine. But the floodgates have already been opened with the M4 Smart Motorway works having the worst of both worlds - three years of lower speed limits and lane restrictions, plus closures of the whole motorway on what seemed like every other weekend for several years too, for work that seemed entirely routine. That was project planning totally for the benefit of the project and it's a scandal. My fear is that contractors were already likely to see that precedent as an opportunity to arrange future projects that way if it suited them, and this policy shift will only make that more likely.

[the cheesecake man]

Planning of roadworks should also consider other roadworks nearby. Yet another round of roadworks has just started on Tinsley Viaduct at M1 J34. How about waiting until the Parkway upgrade works screwing up J33 are finished ("Autumn")? Nope far too considerate. In fact why not time it carefully to coincide with a full weekend closure of J33 on 29th July - 1st August to maximise gridlock?.

[Bomag]

Planning of roadworks should also consider other roadworks nearby. Yet another round of roadworks has just started on Tinsley Viaduct at M1 J34. How about waiting until the Parkway upgrade works screwing up J33 are finished ("Autumn")? Nope far too considerate. In fact why not time it carefully to coincide with a full weekend closure of J33 on 29th July - 1st August to maximise gridlock?.

If you mean the works on the lower deck then these are street works and not works for roads purposes. The works need to be finished before winter otherwise it may get a bit chilly in bits of Sheffield.

[Phil]

For Thickthorn, I believe the plan involves prefabricated a large concrete box for the free flow slips offline, then jacking them into place, which is what the 9 days is for. To do otherwise would involve lots of temporary layouts dragging on for years.

Construction is evolving, structures around existing assets are getting more complex & techniques change to keep up. The railway has been doing this for years & now highways is catching up. A lot of a project's cost is time - quicker you complete the job, cheaper it is, so these options are attractive to NH.

With enough advance warning & robust plan in place the closures can go smoothly. The M42 was already shut for a week in 2021 and largely passed without incident.

The M42 had a motorway standard diversion route for long distance traffic to avoid the closure (M5 & M6)!

That will have helped considerably with reducing congestion on surrounding roads, plus IIRC the closure was at a quiet time of the year in terms of overall traffic volumes.

It does not follow the same can automatically be repeated across the English road network

[the cheesecake man]

Planning of roadworks should also consider other roadworks nearby. Yet another round of roadworks has just started on Tinsley Viaduct at M1 J34. How about waiting until the Parkway upgrade works screwing up J33 are finished ("Autumn")? Nope far too considerate. In fact why not time it carefully to coincide with a full weekend closure of J33 on 29th July - 1st August to maximise gridlock?.

If you mean the works on the lower deck then these are street works and not works for roads purposes. The works need to be finished before winter otherwise it may get a bit chilly in bits of Sheffield.

Yep them's the ones. With some traffic switching from J33 to J34 during the J33 roadworks, and on some days signs encouraging them to do so, and a full closure of J33 next weekend, it's not a good time to reduce the capacity of J34.

[Conekicker]

They did this on the M180. It went badly.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/m180 ... acing-work
https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/updat ... e-of-m180/

So no, full daytime closures of motorways does not help keep "customers" moving.

Why do NH think these motorways were built in the first place? It stands to reason that if the reason they exist was to take traffic off an unsuitable adjacent A road, forcing the entire motorway back onto the A road will be nothing but disastrous. It always is.

The bit in italics may have been true in the 60's and 70's but the wider UK network can in many cases take motorway flows if well planned in advance. The problem is that there are many poor choices by those without sufficient knowledge. In the case of the M180 it was a poor design linked with ill-informed management. The M42 closure in December is much less widely known but then apart from some advance notice signing it was generally well planned and effective, even for as HS2 job.

"Someone" well remembers the M180 case. At the time someone was told "that the envelope should be pushed" or some such management BS phrase. Someone made it quite clear it wouldn't work, didn't support it and had nothing to do with it. That should have rung alarm bells but as Bomag says, "ill-informed management". Hey-ho. Someone was just a teensy-weensy bit amused went it all ended in tears.

On the day it all went belly up, someone was sat in the office with Smug Grin No. 1 all over their face. Their gaffer asked them to stop grinning so much as it was unprofeshnial - then he burst out laughing as he had no time for the contractor clowns in charge at the time either.

Someone was dragged in to help sort out the ensuing mess. Someone may have had fun throwing one or two rather silly suggestions to the collection of headless chickens that were flapping around trying to sort it before giving them the practical solution. Which they grabbed with both hands, even though it was obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse what it was. Yes, that "ill-informed", one hesitates to say "clueless" but...

The expression, " I told you so", never passed someone's lips. Honest guv.

I seriously doubt there are many places in the country that have roads capable of taking diverted motorway traffic for weeks on end without causing problems to a greater or lesser extent - inadequate A roads being one of the reasons why motorways were built in the first place as Bryn says.

Whilst it may be quicker and safer for the contractor and NH, it's at least questionable whether it's safer for those using or living on the diversion route, more traffic ultimately means more incidents? Shall we carefully gloss over the condition of some parts of the non-national network with regards to carriageway and road marking condition, as well as defective signing and signalling? If I were a Local Authority Traffic Manager, I'd be looking at NH to resurface and resign/signalise any of my routes they wanted to use for anything over a couple of days for planned works. Those tens/hundreds of thousands of extra vehicles are going to play hell with the life expectancy of the road markings and pavement.

For example, a local shopping area near me used to have two way streets. Then the local authority, in their wisdom, decided to install a one-way system. One of the roads had only ever taken light traffic, with perhaps a weekly bin lorry and the very occasional lorry. The one-way system saw it taking busses every ten minutes or so and every HGV that went that way. Imagine the local authority's surprise when, within a very few weeks, the road became very badly rutted and in need of full depth reconstruction. The cost of which was possibly more than the cost of implementing the one-way system. Divert traffic at your peril NH.

It should not be forgotten that there are a few sections of the network that don't have an easy, convenient or even practical diversion route. Yes, you can attempt to divert traffic several junctions away from a closure point onto a decent(-ish) diversion route, (which will usually be a longer distance to travel), BUT there will still be a possibly significant percentage of traffic which doesn't use the remote diversion for whatever reason. This traffic then arrives at the closure point and makes its way onto the local network. Then the fun begins.

It might be "good" for NH and their contractors to fully close a section for an extended period of time, whether it's "good" for the local community may well be another matter entirely.