1. Vanessa Gilbert
Highways England

2. Better journeys on better roads Yorkshire and the North East
Thank you for inviting me to share with you what’s happening on the Strategic Road Network.
I’m Vanessa Gilbert, Regional Director for Highways England and I look after the motorways and trunk roads in Yorkshire & Humber and the North East .
I’d like to start by telling you about how we’ve been changing things at a national level,
& then I’ll tell you what we’ve been doing in the region.

3. Introducing Highways England
On the 1 April 2015 the Highways Agency came to an end and we recreated as Highways England – a new public company responsible for the maintenance, modernisation and operation of the Strategic Road Network in England.
We are a public service company, operating a public network – owned by government, but operating with greater commercial freedom.
We’re monitored by the Office of Rail & Road Regulation and Transport Focus
What does having this new company mean?
We have a big brief - to deliver the biggest road investment programme for a generation.
We have a 5-year investment plan which is set out in our Delivery Plan - £11 billion of capital investment in five years (roads period one)
More certainty of funding & flexibility which means we can improve the way that we work .
The move towards long term funding certainty, away from stop start decision making and greater commercial flexibility will enable us to be more responsive to customer demands and to deliver more quickly. We are working alongside our suppliers to gear up to delivering the considerable uplift in investment together with realising the level of efficiencies required.

4. The strategic road network
4,300 miles of motorway and major A-roads
2% of England’s road network
4 million people drive on the network every day
The strategic road network
The network we’re looking after hasn’t changed
4,300 miles of motorways and major A roads in England
The length of the SRN represents only around 2% of the total length of England’s road network, but it carries roughly one third of the total motor vehicle traffic in England
1 billion tonnes of freight transported each year
4 million people drive on the network every day
The Challenges Remain the same
The network is struggling to cope in face of increasing traffic and customers demanding better information
Delays to journeys constrain business growth, historic stop-start funding has made it difficult to plan and deliver efficiently
Carbon emissions and noise impact significantly on local communities
In the next few slides I’ll share with you what are we doing about that

5. Roads reform and strategic road investment
The change started with a vision and a strategy, in December last year the government published it’s Road Investment Strategy setting out a strategic vision, funding plan and performance specification and a long term programme for motorways and major roads.
Later that month we published our response through our Strategic Business Plan setting out how we intend to deliver the investment plan and performance requirements set out in the RIS over the first five year road period.
In March of this year we published our Delivery Plan which sets out in detail what we will deliver and how we will measure oursuccess against the performance specification.

6. Our vision and strategy
Supporting economic growth
Safe and serviceable network
More free flowing network
Improved environment
More accessible and integrated network
What we will deliver
We’ve said we will meet the Government’s objectives and deliver increased investment by focussing on the 5 key areas you can see here.
We expect the increased investment in the SRN over the next five years to deliver substantial benefits for road users, communities and the nation as a whole.

7. Key measurements How Do we Know How Well We’re Doing?
Making the network safer
At least 40% less KSIs by end of 2020
Supporting the smooth flow of traffic
97% available in any one rolling year
85% motorway incidents cleared
within 1 hour
Improving user Satisfaction
90% by 31-Mar-17 and maintain/improve
Achieving real efficiency - meet delivery plan forecasts
£1.2bn cost savings on capital expenditure
Encouraging economic growth Report time lost per vehicle per mile
Keeping the network in good condition
95% of pavement in safe/serviceable condition
Delivering better environmental outcomes
1,150 noise important areas mitigated
- Reduce net biodiversity loss annually
Helping cyclists, walkers, and other vulnerable users
Report number of new/upgraded crossings
Source: DfT RIS Dec 2014
How Do we Know How Well We’re Doing?
We are checking how well we’re doing against those 5 areas with the 8 key measures you can see here.
I’ll use these measures to talk you through what we are planning to do.

8. Encouraging economic growth
Key measurements
Encouraging economic growth
Report time lost per vehicle per mile
Encouraging Economic Growth
The first area we a re focussing on is Supporting Economic Growth and we are measuring our contribution to this by looking at how much time is lost by vehicles over each mile they travel.

9. Supporting economic growth
Delivering significant growth in investment
112 major improvements
£7.7bn of capital investment
£4 of benefits to the economy for every £1 spent
Reducing average delay
Route Strategies
At the heart of our plans for delivering improvements to the Strategic Road Network is a drive to support and encourage economic growth across England and the wider UK. We are doing this by modernising the network to relieve congestion and reduce delays, helping businesses to grow, encouraging investment and creating jobs, as well as opening up new areas for investment.
Investment in the strategic road network has progressively grown over the past few years. Investment in major improvements has grown from around £450 million in 2012/13 to more than £750 million this year.
When our programme completes in Spring 2020 we will have delivered more than 300 miles of additional lanes, including junctions and road widening, and 286 lane miles of smart motorways. Our agreed programme of major improvements for the next five years totals around £7 billion.
We are also focussing on reducing average delay times. Many factors influence this, some of which aren’t within our control, but we’ll be seeking to reduce the delays driver experience as far as possible.
We are working closely with Local Enterprise Partnerships and other local partners and stakeholders to identify current and future constraints to economic growth that the performance of the SRN causes, and identify how future delivery and investment plans might address them. We are then using this information to develop Route Strategies to plan future operational, maintenance and improvement interventions and investment plans.
Our first set of Route Strategies form the basis of our current investment plans and the next set will be fundamental to developing our investment plans for Roads Period 2. We are currently developing a revised approach to developing them for agreement with the SofS, and we will be engaging with key stakeholders regionally and nationally in December? (Check with Julie Smith)

10. Making the network safer Keeping the network in good condition
Key measurements
Making the network safer
At least 40% less KSIs by end of 2020
Keeping the network in good condition
95% of pavement in safe/serviceable condition
Source: DfT RIS Dec 2014
Safe & Serviceable Network
The second area we a re focussing on is keeping the network in good condition (with a target of keeping 95% of it in a safe /serviceable condition), and making the network safer (with a target of reducing the number of people killed and seriously injured by 40%).

11. A safe and serviceable network
Investment to improve the network
More than 90% of travel on the network will be on roads with a safety rating of EuroRAP 3*
Not just our infrastructure - also individual behaviour and vehicle technology
Maintaining pavement condition to at least 95% without need for further investigation
£3.7bn renewing and maintaining the network
Reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured on the network by 40% (by end 2020)
England’s strategic road network is currently one of the safest in the world. The Highways Agency always put safety at the core of its work, and as Highways England we are building on this legacy, working towards the goal of bringing the number of people killed or seriously injured on the network as close as possible to zero by 2020, but as a minimum reducing them by 40%.
Investment to improve the network will make a significant contribution towards that target
Through the investment and wholesale modernisation of the network we will ensure that by the end of 2020 more than 90% of travel on the network will be on roads with a safety rating of EuroRAP 3*.
We’re not just investing in our infrastructure but also in measures aimed at improving individual driver behaviour and developing vehicle technology.
Maintaining pavement condition to at least 95% without need for further investigation
Safety is also impacted by how well roads are maintained. Over the next five years we are investing more than £3.7bn renewing and maintaining the network. This will include an ambitious resurfacing programme. We will be taking a longer term and more integrated view of modernisation and maintenance, based on better asset knowledge.

12. Supporting the smooth flow of traffic
Key measurements
Supporting the smooth flow of traffic
97% available in any one rolling year
85% motorway incidents cleared
within 1 hour
Source: DfT RIS Dec 2014
More Free Flowing Network
The third area we are focussing on is keeping traffic moving.

13. More free flowing network
At least 97% of the network available to traffic
Organise road works to minimise disruption
Improving the overall response to incidents
Improving information to help people make better decisions on their journeys
Operational strategy - to be published by December 2015
At least 85% of all motorway incidents cleared within one hour
Our aim is to provide a more free flowing network, where journeys are easier, safer and more reliable & delays are less likely. We’ll be clearing 85% of incidents on motorways within an hour and keeping 97% of the network available at any one time.
To achieve this we are:
Organising road works to minimise disruption to road users
Improving the overall response to incidents by working better with our partners
Improving the information we provide to help people make better decisions on their journeys: we’re putting in place measures to ensure the information we provide to Traffic England is correct and more accurate. Next year we’re planning to implement a new system (NOMS) which will make it easier for our suppliers to put in and validate more accurate information. In the longer term we’re looking at transforming our NTIS system with the ambition of including more information on Traffic England website such as the time after incidents when the road will return to normal
Publishing an Operational strategy in December, setting out how we will manage demand and increase availability of the network

14. Delivering better environmental outcomes
Key measurements
Delivering better environmental outcomes
1,150 noise important areas mitigated
Reduce net biodiversity loss annually
Source: DfT RIS Dec 2014
Improved Environment
The fourth area we are focussing on is Delivering Better Environmental Outcomes from the work we do

15. Improved environment
Delivering long term benefits to the
natural and built environment
£300m of investment specifically targeted
Mitigate from noise 1,150 important areas
Ten pilot schemes to improve air quality
Improving resilience to flooding and water quality
Biodiversity Action Plan - published
We are committed to ensuring that all activity on the network is delivered in a manner than does not harm the environment, but instead delivers long term benefits to the natural and built environment, creating a sustainable future for everyone.
We are delivering:
£300m of investment specifically targeted at improving the environment
Installing noise mitigation measures at 1,150 important areas
Undertaking ten pilot schemes to improve air quality
Installing measures to increase resilience to flooding and improve water quality
Taking targeted action to improve biodiversity – HE Biodiversity Action Plan now published

16. Helping cyclists, walkers, and other vulnerable users
Key measurements
Helping cyclists, walkers, and other vulnerable users
Report number of new/upgraded crossings
Source: DfT RIS Dec 2014
The fifth area we are focussing on is making our network more accessible and integrated

17. Accessible and integrated network
Integrate with other networks
Specific schemes to integrate with local road development, existing and emerging rail links, ports and airports.
Support for park and ride schemes
New and upgraded crossings to help cyclists, walkers and other users
Our ambition is that our network isn’t a barrier to people but that they should be able to travel across and alongside it. We particularly need to improve the provision for walkers, cyclists and other users who don’t use vehicles.
We are:
Providing at least 150 new and upgraded crossings to help cyclists, walkers and other users
Working to integrate crossings better with other networks, for example we are undertaking:
Specific schemes to integrate with local road development, existing and emerging rail links, ports and airports
Including support for park and ride schemes

18. Improving user Satisfaction
Key measurements
Improving user Satisfaction
90% by 31-Mar-17 and maintain/improve
Source: DfT RIS Dec 2014
Critically we are also focussing on improving customer satisfaction, and arguably it underpins everything we do

19. Customer focus
Up to 85 billion miles of journeys per year
Communities, road-users, stakeholders
Customer experience through roadworks trial
We recognise that customers are at the heart of what we do:
They make around 85 billion miles of journeys per year
What we do and how well we do it impact on a range of different groups and we’re looking to improve our customer service for all of them
Currently we’re trialling a new approach to customer experience through roadworks which is based on experience from the airline sector. If you’ve travelled on the M1 in the Midlands and Yorkshire recently you will have seen the orange signs. Trials such as these, working with Transport Focus colleagues to better understand what our customers need, and developing our people to better manage customer issues will help us to deliver something better for you
We want 90% of our customers to satisfied with our service by 31 March 2017.
Hopefully that’s given you a feel for how we are changing a a national level, I’d now like to share with you what we are doing in Yorkshire & Humber and the North East

20. Our regional challenges
The North East
28% single carriageway
55% dual carriageway
16% motorway
Yorkshire
12% single carriageway
24% dual carriageway
64% motorway
Before I talk about the investment we are making I’d just like to share with you the nature of the region I look after, I think it is one of the biggest and most interesting in the country.
We have a series of very important north-south and east-west routes such as the M1, A1 and M62, A66 connecting our customers with major cities, ports and airports across the region
Our eastern trunk roads such as the A64 and the A63 also provide key links from the city regions to tourist destinations and are important economic factors for the east coast of the region.
Our southern trans-pennine routes such as the A628 suffer from significant delay problems throughout the year due to capacity and winter weather impacts.
And traffic flows are increasing.
Traffic flows on the M62 between junctions 26 and 30 are in excess of 60,000 vehicles per day.
Information up to the end of March 2015 shows that we have higher than average levels of vehicle delay to manage in the NE (10.1 seconds per vehicle mile being second only to the M25 area).  Annual average speeds are 4.3mph less than the national average, the NE having the slowest part of the national network. 
This is coupled with ageing infrastructure at a number of key junctions like M62/M1 Lofthouse Interchange.
Maintaining and improving these routes while continuing to sustain very high levels of traffic flow to support these cities is a daily challenge. In addition, the impact on air quality and noise from this traffic on communities near these busy routes is an increasing concern.
We are also continually working to bring forward safety and other improvements to reduce the number of road casualties, connect communities and better serve vulnerable road users, like pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders on routes like the A63, A64 and A628.

21. Major schemes in construction
Investment
Open to traffic
(1) A1 Coal House to Metro Centre
£61 million
2016/17 (Q1)
(2) A1 Leeming to Barton
£386 million
2017/18 (Q1)
(6) A160/A180 widening & junction improvements
£88 million
2016/17
So What are we Doing to Meet these Challenges?
Investment in the strategic road network across England has progressively grown over the past few years , We’re extremely proud that we’ve been able to secure this investment and customers are now starting to experience the benefits ofschemes such as the Smart Motorway on sections of the M62 .
In April 2015 we started a five year investment period – called Road Period 1. This spans the period 2015/16 to 2019/20 – during this period we are sustaining our current level of regional investment, by investing £1.4 billion in the region’s strategic road network. That means starting or completing 14 major road schemes.
Schemes which are currently in construction:
A1 Coal House to Metrocentre around Newcastle.
Will be open to traffic in Spring We’re widening the A1 and building a new parallel link road next to the A1 (between Lobley Hill & Gateshead Quays). This link road will provide a route for local traffic.
(2) A1 Leeming to Barton. This is our biggest investment in the region. We’re replacing the existing dual carriageway with a new three lane motorway. We’re also building a new local access road alongside the motorway and building a new junction at Catterick, and an improved junction at Scotch Corner.
(3) A160/A180 Port of Immingham Improvements. We’re providing better access to the Port of Immingham through our scheme on the A160 between the junction with the A180. Our improvements stretch along approx 5km of road and include improved interchanges and roundabouts, a new road bridge, and upgrading a section of single carriageway to dual carriageway.
Looking further ahead our intent is to invest around £3 billion in the region’s roads over this and the next Road Period – though this is of course subject to further confirmation. 26 major road schemes have been identified to be delivered, started, or development started, during this period.

22. Smart motorways in construction
Scheme
Investment
(1) M1 – Jct 32-35A
£94 - £133 million
(2) M1 – Jct 39-42
£120 million
We are also delivering more Smart Motorways, there are two currently under construction in the region. M1 J32-35A, and M1 J39-42.
As you know Smart motorways help relieve congestion by using technology to vary speed limits. They also allow the hard shoulder to be fully converted to a running lane to create additional capacity. They also deliver these benefits at a significantly lower cost than conventional motorway widening and with less impact on the environment during construction.
Together these two schemes will add 41 lane miles to the network.
We already have evidence of the benefits that a smart motorway scheme can bring. The first smart motorway scheme opened to traffic on the M42 motorway in Recent analysis of the data gathered since opening has found that journey time reliability improved by 22 per cent and reduced emissions by up to 10 per cent due to traffic flowing more smoothly. In addition, personal injury accidents have reduced by more than half.

23. Schemes due to start by 2019/20
Investment
(3) A19/A1058 Coast Road
c. £100 million
(4) A19 Testos
c. £70 million
(5) A63 Castle Street
c. £170 million
(7) A19 Down Hill Lane
c. £40 million
(8) A19 Norton to Wynyard
£140 - £220 million
(9) A1 and A19 technology
c. £140 million
(10) M1 Junction 45
c. £ 11 million
(11) M62/M606 Chain Bar
c. £120 - £200 million
(12) M621 Jct 1-7
c. £55 million
M62 Jct smart motorway
£100- £250 million
Nine of our schemes aren’t yet in construction, but we’re planning to start them before the end of this road period – by 2019/20. The vast majority of these schemes are junction improvements, but there is also some technology investment due for the A1 and A19 as well as one smart motorway scheme. This smart motorway scheme is part of a £1.5 billion national investment to build 10 more smart motorways nationally. Our long term goal is to have a smart motorway spine linking London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.

24. Developing Solutions
Feasibility
A1 North of Newcastle
A1 Newcastle – Gateshead Western Bypass
A628 Transpenine
Construction to start beyond 2020
M1/M62 Lofthouse interchange
A64 Hopgrove roundabout
A1 Redhouse to Darrington and A1(M) Doncaster Bypass
M1 Jct 35a - 39
In addition to delivering schemes on the ground now we are also working with partners in the region to identify what improvements need to be delivered to help the region grow.
Last year we carried out a number of feasibility studies
These studies examined some of the most notorious and long-standing congestion hotspots in the country
In the next five years we will take forward and develop solutions to the issues investigated by these studies
Three of those studies were in the Y&NE region
A1 North of Newcastle (A1 North of Ellingham, A1 Morpeth to Ellingham)
A1 Newcastle – Gateshead Western Bypass A1 Scotswood to North Brunton, A1 Birtley to Coal House widening)
A628 Transpennine (A61 Dualling, A628 Climbing lanes)
Work from these studies, together with the other schemes listed on the slide are likely to form the basis of the investment in Roads Period 2

25. Maintaining the network
200 lane miles of new road surface
150 lane miles of road markings
12,000 metres of vehicular barriers
15,000 metres of drainage
16 technology renewals and upgrades
We believe that safety comes first and that nobody should be harmed when travelling or working on our roads. We are determined to continue to drive up safety standards across our network. One way we can help to keep people safe is to keep the network in good condition, which is why we’ll be investing more than £600 million in the region over the next five years. This equates to around £130 million per year and this slide gives you a flavour of what we’ll be delivering this year
We are working towards a much better forward-plan of maintenance and small improvement works so that we can deliver it more efficiently and minimise its impact on drivers. For example:
We will continue to carry out roadworks wherever possible when they have least impact on customers. In fact we typically carry out 80% of our routine maintenance work at night.
We are currently planning our 2016/17 and 17/18 programmes of smaller improvements and maintenance work to ensure 97% of lanes are available for use at any one time. This means we’re looking for opportunities to deliver larger schemes where we will carry out a variety of improvement and maintenance work. This will have the added benefit of minimising the need to return to the same section of road to carry out further works at a later date.
A great example of this new approach is: the work which started in June at Junction 26 of the M62 which will see an extra lane added to the Chain Bar roundabout where the M62 motorway meets the M606 for Bradford. Once complete, drivers will benefit from the additional fourth lane which will help to reduce congestion and queuing on the M62 westbound exit slip road. Improvements are also being made to the existing pedestrian and cycling facilities as part of the scheme.

26. Our environmental work
Living Landscapes Group
Bat roosting assessments
Protecting water vole habitat
Balancing ponds and their ecological potential
Living landscapes
We are also working hard to leave a better environmental legacy around our work. For example we are part of a Living Landscapes Group which brings together our supply chain and partner organisations in the natural environment sector. This group is working together to agree at a strategic level what work needs to be done to deliver improved and increasing biodiversity across the strategic road network in the region.   
Using GIS mapping tools we’re bringing together information about environmental designations such as SSSIs, the Wildlife Trusts Living Landscapes vision, Pollinator Strategy Beelines, and Highways England’s land holdings, to help identify the locations where that investment will have the greatest impact.  This intelligence is then used to develop our environmental future investment plan.
Bats
Each and every one of our structures on the Yorkshire network has been assessed for its bat roost potential. This assessment has considered factors such as crevices, nearby foraging habitat (e.g. broadleaved woodland and scrub). We use this information to inform our scheme design at the earliest stage.
Water vole
Our network in Yorkshire has a significant but fragmented water vole population within the low-lying Humberhead Levels. We manage the drainage ditches carefully so that a balance is achieved between drainage and habitat. We take a different approach to ditch clearance where ecological surveys have identified the presence of water vole.
73 kilometres of drainage ditches have been cleared in this manner since 2009.
Balancing ponds
Balancing ponds act as critical water storage areas next to the strategic road network. They can also offer optimal habitat for amphibians. We’ve assessed all 27 balancing ponds in the Yorkshire area for their ecological potential
Biodiversity and Biofuels
In February and March this year our suppliers Aone+ carried out a trial project to see how woodlands on our land holdings could be managed as a biomass resource. The results were promising and we are looking at the wider potential for this approach across our network.

27. What can you do to help us?
Hopefully that’s given you an idea of what we are doing to help you have better journeys, but I’d like to finish by asking you to do what you can to help us deliver a better service:
When something unfortunate happens to an HGV it tends to have a really big impact on the rest of the traffic. The two biggest most common causes of delay caused by HGV’s are shed loads and break downs due to inadequate maintenance so please:
do that last final check that everything is securely tied down, and
keep up with your routine maintenance and vehicle checks
And my final plea is to put your rubbish in a bag, take it with you and dispose of it responsibly. Please don’t through it out of your can window. In the first 8 months of this year we have picked over 10,000 bags of litter from the network in Yorkshire & Humber alone, a 53% increase on last year. And this is not always just crisp packets and sandwich wrappers. Our crews are having to pick up pop bottles filled with urine and human faeces.
Please don’t be a tosser!

28. Any questions? Vanessa.gilbert@highwaysengland.co.uk