NWSRG, Lincolnshire County Council

Transcription

1 Minutes of the 43rd meeting of the UK Roads Board meeting held at Roads Service Northern Ireland, Clarence Court, Belfast on 18 June 2013 Present: Andrew Murray Andy Best David Davies Representing: Roads Service Northern Ireland (Chairman) LoTAG, TfL NWSRG, Lincolnshire County Council Rob Gillespie Douglas Hill Donald Morrison Amanda Richards Steve Spender Justin Ward TAG SCOTS Transport Scotland Road Condition Steering Group, Surrey County Councy FCMG CIHT (Secretariat) In attendance: Sam Beamish and Alan Taggart, representing World Road Association Technical Committee 4.1 Management of Road Assets 1. Introduction, welcome and apologies Andrew Murray welcomed everyone to the meeting, with apologies recorded for Steve Berry, Ramesh Sinhal, Marcus Lloyd, Richard Morgan and Anthony Radford-Foley. 2. World Road Association Alan Taggart and Sam Beamish gave a presentation about their work on the World Road Association Technical Committee (TC) 4.1 Management of Road Assets. Sam Beamish said that a questionnaire was going to be developed by TC 4.1 that would look at cross-asset optimisation. Action: Sam Beamish to circulate questionnaire to UK Roads Board members for assistance with input into the questionnaire.

2 The Board highlighted that the Highways Agency, Roads Service Northern Ireland, Transport Scotland, TfL and Southeast Seven might be useful to approach for information on crossasset optimisation. 3. Note of last meeting and matters arising Accuracy Minor amendment from the draft minute, add on Lila Tachtsi to the attendee list. Matters arising Action: Ramesh Sinhal to provide an update on the work of boundary issues that is being led by the Highways Agency. Action: Justin Ward to contact Mike Winter and Andrew Murray to seek a resolution to the inspection issue and duties on highway inspectors Action: Justin Ward to arrange a briefing on flooding/suds from Defra Andrew Murray said that he had proposed that the Highways Maintenance Efficiency Programme (HMEP) should, in the future, commission work through the UK Roads Liaison Group. Action: Justin Ward to clarify with DfT that TSO will stop selling hard copies of Wellmaintained Highways Steve Spender said that he had clarified the issue of inspection regimes for cycle-ways. Action: Steve Spender to work with Lila Tachtsi to ensure coverage of the cycle-ways inspection regime process within Well-maintained Highways 4. UK Roads Liaison Group minutes Andrew Murray highlighted a number or changes in personnel at the Group, saying that Graham Pendlebury had replaced John Dowie as Chairman of the Group, Martin Low was the new Chairman of the UK Network Management Board and Stephen Fiddler had taken over within the DfT following Mostaque Ahmed s move to a new job. 5. Well-maintained Highways Appendix H David Davies said that the road shows on the new Appendix H went well and that before the final document was published, a meeting was due to be scheduled to address a couple of issues. The Board recorded their appreciation to the assistance provided by the organisations that supported the road show events. David Davies provided an overview of a report that provided feedback to points raised by Atkins/DfT on the updated draft of Appendix H. Andrew Murray thanked David for his report and said the report provided a very thorough analysis of the issues. The Board did not raise

3 any concerns about the approach outlined to move Appendix H towards publication and were content that the document would be longer than the current appendix. Action: the Board considered that a meeting to resolve outstanding issues for Appendix H should be convened between the DfT, Atkins and the NWSRG NWSRG update The two other reports presented by David Davies on behalf of the NWSRG were: Environment Agency David Davies presented a paper with a proposal from the Environment Agency to carry out research with the NWSRG contractor, TRL, on reviewing the environmental impact of using de-icers. The Board was supportive of the proposal. Winter Service Decision Making Competency Skills David Davies provided an update on the Winter Service Decision Making competency skills. The Board provided feedback on the proposal suggesting that there should be a three tiered approach: a foundation level, a managerial level and a client side level (where winter service operations are outsourced). The Board supported a trial-based approach to this and requested an update following a planned trialled in Devon. The Board supported the suggestion from David Davies that the title of the scheme should be broadened from just decision makers to decision makers and managers. The Board supported this proposal. Action: David Davies to speak to Tony Bemrose, Steve Spender and Richard Hayes about splitting out the course content into a three tiered approach and title of the course. Review of standards in Well-maintained Highways Alan Taggart said that Atkins had still not been commissioned by DfT to undertake the review. Alan said that a review of Well-maintained Highways was a recommendation from the Potholes Review. Following a brief discussion on the issue, Andrew Murray concluded that a positive update at the next meeting would take place. 6. Roads Board research priorities and potential funding bodies Andrew Murray asked the Board Chairman for their sub-group priorities Action: Each Chairman to send a paragraph to Justin Ward on their research priorities for Justin Ward to collate and issue to Andrew Murray by mid July. Include note that the paragraph on the Asset Management Group was on hold at the moment, due to a change in Chairmanship (see item 8). Donald Morrison said that the Scottish Road Research Board was looking into slips/trips on footways and links to treatment regimes on footways with a steep incline. Action: Donald Morrison to send details of Scottish Road Research Board winter footways research [completed].

4 There was some discussion on the management of the website contents for the Road Condition Management Group with one option being that the content is absorbed into the UKRLG website. 7. Feedback from sub-groups Asset management group Donald Morrison said that he understood that James Bailey was taking over the Chairmanship of the Asset management group. Action: Donald Morrison to provide contact details for James Bailey to Justin Ward [post-meeting note Justin Ward has had confirmation that James is now the Chairman of the Asset Management Group). Action: Donald Morrison to speak to James Bailey about the paragraph on research priorities Footways and Cycleways Management Group (FCMG) Steve Spender said that the funding constraints were continuing with the group and that the website was also now considerably out-of-date. Action: Justin Ward and Steve Spender to review establishing FCMG content on the UKRLG website Action: Andy Best to look at potential TfL support to assist with FCMG project funding Road Condition Management Group (RCMG) Amanda Richards presented her report to the group, recommendations 1 and 2 were approved: Recommendation 1: UKRB to endorse seeking funding support from contributions from DfT (and other national governments) Recommendation 2: A review of the Annual Health Check process was carried out by Linhay/Hyperion whereby key stakeholders views were canvassed through questionnaires and phone conference calls. The final report was ratified by the Board. On recommendation 3 (UKRB to approve option 1 to allow the continuation of the PCIS website post 22/9/13 while a new website is developed and domain is acquired prior to 13/1/15) there was some further discussion of options. Action: David Davies to speak with Amanda Richards on options for incorporating the PCIS website under similar arrangements to the NWSRG website, as both were contracted through TRL. Amanda asked if the process for developing a mechanism for accreditation of new systems could be viewed as an extension of the existing AHC process and therefore be carried out by Linhay/Hyperion, or should an expressions of interest notice be posted in the RCMG

5 newsletter to determine if other contractors would be interested in undertaking the work. It was felt that unless there was provision for this in the current agreement with Linhay/Hyperion, some limited publicity should be used to seek other interested parties. Andrew Murray suggested that a brief item goes into Transportation Professional for any expressions of interest in the work. Action: Amanda Richards to provide a few lines of text to Justin Ward on the expressions of interest notice (Post meeting note: Amanda Richards confirmed that the original agreement did have provision for this work and subsequently agreed with the Chairman that this provision would be utilized.) 8. Review of UK Roads Board Business Plan Action: Justin Ward to update online business plans and include as part of the next UK Roads Board meeting, based on inputs received from Sub-Group Chairmen 9. Communication/publicity Action: Each Sub-Group Chairman to review looking at the Technical Committees - and advise which TCs are relevant to their Groups. Justin Ward said that the upcoming feature in Transportation Professional would be based around an interview with Roy Brannen from Transport Scotland, but would also include mention of the RAC Foundation Report Ploughing On and the PCMG issue (see above). Andrew Murray said that sounded good. 10. Any other business LoHAC contracts Andy Best said the new LoHAC contracts were now live. The Framework contract has 10 London Boroughs signed up to it now. Andy said this was a huge step forward. Action: Andy Best to give a presentation on LoHAC at the next UK Roads Board meeting. Highway Engineering MSc Amanda Richards said she was undertaking a Highway Engineering MSc and wanted ideas/suggestions for her Masters. Action: UK Roads Board members to provide suggestions to Amanda for potential research areas for her MSc Number of meetings Andrew Murray said that the UKRLG had provided feedback saying that if a Board wanted to meet four times in a year then that was up to the discretion of the individual Board. Following a discussion the Board agreed that due to the workload of the Board, four meetings would be more appropriate. The Board discussed four options on how this might work: Chairman of UKRB and Sub Group Chairman in person or web/conference call Chairman of UKRB and Sub Group Chairman and any other members of the UKBB that want to join in person or web/conference call. The Board will keep this under review for a decision at the next meeting.

6 11. Date of next meeting 16 October 2013