Fast-track highway schemes trialled

Date: 22/11/2012

Four fast-track road infrastructure schemes are being trialled by the Department for Transport in response to calls by the prime minister that such work should be carried out more quickly.

In order for construction time to be cut a number of measures are being piloted, including offsite construction, round-the-clock working and adding more manpower and machinery to projects, reports the Construction Index.

Three of the schemes trialling this new way of working are managed motorway projects, which have been moved forward from the next spending review period to the current one.

They are the M3 junctions 2 to 4A at an estimated cost of £159 million to £223 million, the M6 junctions 10A to 13 with a budget of £140 million to £201 million, and the M1 junctions 28 to 31.

Instead of creating extra capacity, managed motorways work by maximising the capacity that is already in existence.

This is done by converting the hard shoulder into a lane for traffic and putting technology in place which implements variable speed limits in order to smooth the flow of traffic.

Patrick McLoughlin, Transport Secretary, said: “My ambition is that in future all major road schemes will be accelerated, tackling congestion more quickly and boosting the economy.”

In a keynote speech to the Confederation of British Industry recently, the Prime Minister announced that "it’s our ambition to cut the time it takes to upgrade our roads in half".

The Department added that if planning, design and preparation tasks can all be carried out simultaneously the time taken to complete a project will be cut dramatically.

The fourth project which the Department wishes to accelerate is the A160/A180 route leading to the Port of Immingham.

Improvements to this road had been planned to start in the summer of 2015, but could be completed 18 months sooner than anticipated and be in use by the autumn of 2016.

The budget of £89 million to £132 million for this project has not yet been agreed, therefore this could hold the process up.

Statutory processes must be completed for all four schemes before any construction work can begin.

Posted by Mary Treen

Transport News and Transport Consulting News