“We need to live up to our side of the bargain” says National Highways

Laura Baker, customer service director of the major projects division at National Highways, has provided insight into how the organisation will address fleet concerns including improvements to smart motorways and roadside facilities for HGV drivers.

At the most recent Fleet200 Strategy Network meeting at Company Car in Action 2022, held at UTAC Millbrook Proving Ground, Baker also discussed progress of the Roads Investment Strategy 2 (RIS2) and the objectives set by RIS3, including how the body is working to operate, maintain and improve the Strategic Road Network (SRN).

Baker was questioned on what improvements would be made to smart motorways – which National Highways has ceased building until 2025, or at least until it has reviewed the safety case, she said.

The organisation has conducted a review of smart motorways and has 72 improvements to make. To date, it has only made 26 of the improvements.

Baker said: “Smart motorways are all about a package of measures, it isn't just one thing.

"We are putting stopped vehicle detection on every smart motorway, we’re ensuring the facilities are right in our control room and that our traffic officers can get to people quicker, making sure that every part of the smart motorway is covered by cameras that work.”

National Highways is also building more emergency refuge areas – Baker said there will be one every three-quarters of a mile.

“We need to live up to our side of the bargain of keeping people safe," Baker said

National Highways has also launched ‘Digital Roads’ and ‘Digital for Customers’, which in about 18 months’ time should be able to provide information on diversion routes that can be used in network planning and can be put into vehicles through Google, Waze and satnavs which tells the driver the safest route to take with the shortest journey time.

In response to a question regarding more information on stranded vehicles, Baker said: “Digital for Customers will enable us to have more precise date, so the stranded vehicle will be on your map, so that you know to avoid it.”

Improving roadside facilities for HGV drivers

The question was also raised on improving parking and roadside facilities for HGV drivers, as well as creating new sites solely for trucks that have capacity for electric trucks, to which Baker replied, National Highways has a fund which will look to improve existing facilities and identify areas next to the network that it can encourage the market to create truck freight facilities, which will be solely for trucks.

National Highways has started to run studies considering how it can improve the current provision, such as A14 provision and SW amenity sites, layby provision to improve toilets, litter prevention and lighting and identifying under-utilised facilities and how they could be made ‘more attractive’ to professional drivers.

Baker said it has already identified one site to date and is working on that, currently.

She said: “It is a little bit quicker and easier to improve existing services, but we do have a plan for specific sites as well.”

'Increasing speed limits reduces journey time'

Baker also said there was a positive case for raising speed limits, including reducing journey times.

The organisation says it has saved about 3.8 million hours of general time in the past 12 months by increasing the speed limits and at the end of the last financial year, 93% of all its major schemes operated at the highest safest speed that they could.

When the speed limit is raised in roadworks, better throughput is achieved at 60mph, then at 70mph or 50mph, said Baker.

Other areas highlighted by the roundtable discussion with Baker on the SRN included:

• Increasing speed limits to 60mph for environmental benefits – where is the evidence for this?
• Is there any investment on Northern Highways, as it appears to be all Southern?
• Lack of information on road closures
• Lack of movement of hydrogen hubs
• Lack of safety on the hard shoulder
• Congestion charge invoices in PDF format-only – could it be amalgamated into one single platform to pay, like a fuel card
• Concrete road replacement to provide a more suitable road surface for electric vehicles (EVs)
• Improving EV charging facilities at service stations – combatting out of order chargers and the time limit on a stay at a service station