Skip to main content

Highway safety inspection delivers safer roads, cost savings

Last year, the County of Lancashire, in the north-west of England, repaired a total of 15,000 potholes on its network of roads. In 2010, that number is likely to significantly increase as Lancashire, along with local authorities throughout the UK, deals with the after-effects of a record cold spell in December and January with prolonged snow, ice and sub-zero temperatures.
January 30, 2012 Read time: 4 mins
Last year, the County of Lancashire, in the north-west of England, repaired a total of 15,000 potholes on its network of roads. In 2010, that number is likely to significantly increase as Lancashire, along with local authorities throughout the UK, deals with the after-effects of a record cold spell in December and January with prolonged snow, ice and sub-zero temperatures.

While repairing potholes on that scale is expensive, vastly more expensive for local authorities across the UK are the third-party claims by pedestrians, cyclists and motorists for injuries and damage caused by potholes, which can cost upwards of US$25,000 to settle.

Indeed, the number of claims being made against local authorities across the UK has risen by 40 per cent over the past 10 years, fuelled by intensive advertising of 'no win, no fee' compensation claim services by the legal profession. This increasing compensation culture has also spawned a significant number of fraudulent claims.

Against this background, the legal situation for local authorities is difficult. The 1980 Highways Act places a legal duty on them to inspect and maintain the roads within their jurisdiction (except for motorways which are the responsibility of the national 503 Highways Agency).

With the number of potholes increasing, and the timeframe (lest a compensation claim be lodged) in which they must be filled in decreasing, it is vital that local authorities have a thorough system of inspection in place.

A case in point is Lancashire County Council (LCC) which, seven years ago, implemented such an inspection system by appointing 431 Capita Symonds to undertake professional inspections of all the county roads it is responsible for.

Cost benefit

In purely financial terms, LCC has demonstrated how an ongoing programme of safety inspections plays a crucial part, not just in the management and maintenance of its roads, but also in substantially reducing compensation payouts. When the programme began in 2003, LCC was paying out nearly US$11.2 million a year in claims. Last year, that was reduced to just over $4 million.

According to Nick Pocock, Project and Technical Manager at Capita Symonds, the financial savings come primarily from the sophistication of the system: "Our safety inspection system enables fraudulent claims to be repudiated more easily because the data collected is so accurate and contains an enormous amount of information."

The system

Capita Symonds uses a team of 10 dedicated highway safety inspectors to cover the whole of the LCC highway network looking for all hazardous defects that may cause damage or injury to the general public and vehicles. The team then measures, records and transmits the information to LCC which then arranges for the relevant repairs to be carried out.

Project:
• Highway Safety Inspection programme, Lancashire, UK

Costs:
• US$638,000 per annum
• RoI: 43 per cent ($908,000 saved)

Benefits:
• Annual savings of approximately 60 per cent on third party claim payouts;
• A safer road network;
• Reduction in manpower
State-of-the-art data capture devices are used to carry out inspections, utilising GPS and 3G technology to locate and transmit data from the roadway to a central office. Software enables 'real world co-ordinates' to provide a simple reference for locating repair sites while collection methods allow direct transfer of data to GIS and other current mapping systems (safety inspectors can locate and describe defects before exporting information direct from site to the appropriate system).

The results speak for themselves: this inspection system is so sophisticated it enables the inspectors to cover around 44,000km of walked and driven inspections per annum, producing a safer road network.

Nevertheless, evolution is key, says Pocock: "We are currently investigating methods of including systems to allow GPS tracking of inspections which would allow a definitive and legally accepted means of tracing all walked and driven inspections. We are even developing methods to transmit live data from site to office, thus speeding an already efficient system, as well as including the facility to carry out highway condition surveys at the same time as safety inspections, making full use of the inspector's time on site and providing an even more cost-effective system."

Related Content

  • June 15, 2015
    Sensor detects pothole hazards in real time
    An innovative ‘pothole alert’ research project could potentially save motorists billions of pounds in punctures, vehicle damage and road accidents every year, say researchers. Jaguar Land Rover is researching a new connected car technology that will allow a vehicle to identify the location and severity of potholes, broken drains and manhole covers, and then share this data in real-time via the cloud with other vehicles and with road authorities to help them prioritise repairs.
  • November 28, 2012
    Canadian authorities convinced of enforcement safety benefits
    Cost-benefit analysis invariably finds highly in favour of speed and red light enforcement, particularly so in Edmonton in the Alberta province of Canada, where authorities need no convincing of the merits of road safety engineering. Justification of enforcement efforts on economic grounds has been reinforced this year, by a study of the costs and benefits of red light enforcement. New York-based economic research firm John Dunham & Associates carried out this latest analysis for American Traffic Solutions
  • January 30, 2012
    Managed motorways, hard shoulder running aids safety, saves time
    The announcement that, in 2012/13, work to extend Managed Motorways to Junctions 5-8 of the M6 near Birmingham in the West Midlands is scheduled to start marks the next step for the UK's hard shoulder running concept, first introduced on the M42 in 2006. The M6 scheme is in fact one of several announced; over the next few years work will start on applying Managed Motorways to various sections of the M1, M25 London Orbital, M60 and M62. According to Paul Unwin, senior project manager with the Highways Agency
  • January 26, 2012
    Refurbishing ageing VMS with new technology
    Virginia DoT faced a challenge common to many highway authorities around the world: the need, in economically challenging times, to replace ageing variable message signs reaching the end of their operational life. For some 25 years now, since the mid 80s, Virginia Department of Transportation (VDoT), has deployed variable message signs (VMS) as part of its motorist information systems. Throughout the state there are still many old 'flip-disk' signs. Some of the companies that provided these electronic messa