National Highways has released its one-year Delivery Plan as an update to their five-year plan, setting out their goals for the coming year.
The plan includes an update on the seven major projects completed by National Highways over the past year, five of which were completed well ahead of schedule. In the next year, thirteen projects will be undertaken, with more in the planning stages.
The main focus of this year’s plan looks to be safety, and the plan begins with responses to a range of customer concerns that National Highways have received.
One change is to expand the Highest Safe Speed (HSS) wherever possible, increasing the speed limit through roadwork areas to 60mph instead of 50mph. This should go some way to alleviating customer irritation around roadworks and roadwork-related congestion.
There is also a strong push to investigate and cater for the needs of pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders, with surveys and reports due to be released this year to evaluate their satisfaction levels. Additionally, National Highways has promised to liaise further with disability organisations with the goal of making its services more accessible and inclusive.
A large part of any major work in the modern world is environmental impact. Happily, National Highways has stated one of its goals is to improve lives and to protect the environment. The organisation intends to develop an Environmental Sustainability Action Plan and publish its Environmental Sustainability Strategy by the end of 2022-23.
Environmental factors should be central to any work to be carried out, and National Highways intends that any infrastructure design will be respectful of place and will involve environmental impact assessments. A move to renewable energy is part of National Highways’ plan to reach net zero.
The report also includes some performance metrics for the coming year. Some of the key performance indicators released by National Highways include reducing the average delay per vehicle per mile, and increasing the percentage of motorway incidents cleared within 1 hour (currently at 86%).
The report does not announce anything revolutionary, however it does present a plan for steady improvement in all areas, reducing delays and improving the road experience for all users.
If National Highways meets their targets for next year, drivers should see a noticeable improvement when navigating roadworks, and hopefully a reduction in delays.
Click the link for the full report.
