Skip to main content

AECOM appointed technical partner for A303 improvements scheme

Global infrastructure services firm AECOM has secured an eight-year contract with Highways England to work as its technical partner for the major A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down improvements scheme. AECOM, working with its supply chain partners Mace and Mouchel, will deliver a range of multidisciplinary services to support all phases of the project, which will upgrade the eight-mile stretch of the A303 from single to dual carriageway to create a high-quality, reliable route to the south west, improve safet
April 12, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
Global infrastructure services firm 3525 AECOM has secured an eight-year contract with 8101 Highways England to work as its technical partner for the major A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down improvements scheme.

AECOM, working with its supply chain partners Mace and Mouchel, will deliver a range of multidisciplinary services to support all phases of the project, which will upgrade the eight-mile stretch of the A303 from single to dual carriageway to create a high-quality, reliable route to the south west, improve safety and help conserve and enhance the Stonehenge World Heritage site (WHS).

The project includes a proposed new tunnel alongside the site to improve the setting of Stonehenge and other important monuments within the WHS, as well as improvements to existing junctions between the A303 and the intersecting A345 and A360.

As technical partner, AECOM will support Highways England in the delivery of the project, providing highways and tunnelling design services, as well as environmental, heritage, noise, traffic modelling and procurement consultancy services.

The scheme is part of a wider strategy to create a new South West Expressway, which includes a package of improvements to the A303 that will support economic growth, generate employment and increase visitor expenditure.

The A303 forms the most direct route between London and the south west and is vital for the local and regional economy. With around 24,000 vehicles using the 35-mile single carriageway section of the road every day, bottlenecks, changes in speed limit, hidden accesses and staggered junctions make journey times unreliable. The accident rate on the A303 is also higher than on other similar roads. Upgrading the road to dual carriageway with motorway standard junctions will help improve journey times and safety, particularly in summer when the number of vehicles using the route increases significantly.

Related Content

  • July 23, 2012
    Is road user charging the first stop for congestion management?
    David Hytch, Information Systems Director at the Greater Manchester Public Transport Executive, considers just where congestion pricing schemes should sit in transport planners' hierarchy of options for managing demand. On the face of it, Greater Manchester in England's proposed congestion charging scheme hit just about every sweet spot possible when it came to convincing the general public of the need for and benefits of such a venture. There was the promise from national government of almost £3bn-worth of
  • May 9, 2019
    TRL: Cities must do more to help VRUs
    UK cities must learn from the Netherlands and Denmark if active travel and increased safety for vulnerable road users are to co-exist, says TRL’s Marcus Jones Active travel’ refers to modes of transport in which physical effort is required to undertake purposeful journeys - for example, walking or cycling to school, work or the local shops, as well as walking and standing as part of accessing public transport. The benefits of replacing short car journeys with more active forms of transport are obvious. Act
  • April 2, 2014
    The great pay divide
    Public acceptance is crucial for the acceptance of managed and express lanes as Jon Masters discovers. Lists of proposed highway expansion projects introducing variably priced toll lanes continue to lengthen. Managed lanes, or express lanes to some, are gaining support as a politically favourable way of adding capacity and reducing acute congestion on principal highways. In Florida, for example, the managed lanes on the 95 Express are claimed to have significantly increased average peak-time speeds on tolle
  • April 25, 2012
    Integrating traffic systems improves management and control
    Following a successful trial in 2007, VicRoads has adopted Streams Motorway Management from Transmax as its primary traffic management and control system Throughout the world, the avoidable social cost of traffic congestion continues to rise each year with increased motorisation, urbanisation and population growth. Traffic congestion is responsible for an increase in travel times, vehicle operating costs and carbon emissions. In 2007, VicRoads commissioned Streams Motorway Management for the M1 Monash Freew