Skip to main content

Highways England is performing well but has areas for improvement, finds regulator

The Annual Assessment of Highways England’s Performance by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has found that the company is performing well against most of its performance targets. ORR says however that continued improvement is needed to plan when work takes place throughout the year. ORR, which is the official Monitor of Highways England, found that the company is meeting its targets to keep traffic flowing while delivering its programme of major improvements. It is continuing to focus on improving safety a
July 21, 2017 Read time: 3 mins
The Annual Assessment of 8101 Highways England’s Performance by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has found that the company is performing well against most of its performance targets. ORR says however that continued improvement is needed to plan when work takes place throughout the year.


ORR, which is the official Monitor of Highways England, found that the company is meeting its targets to keep traffic flowing while delivering its programme of major improvements. It is continuing to focus on improving safety and is delivering a comprehensive health and safety plan. And it is starting to carry out its work more efficiently, making savings of £169m over the last two years.

The Annual Assessment notes however that Highways England narrowly missed its targets on road user satisfaction and network condition for 2016-17. Road user satisfaction was 89.1 per cent against a target of 90 per cent, down from 89.3 per cent last year. The percentage of road in good condition was 94.3 per cent, against a target of 95 per cent. ORR will closely monitor the company’s plans to improve performance in these areas over the next year.

Highways England is improving its planning of major improvement schemes – a key recommendation of ORR’s last annual assessment and its Update Report in February 2017. The proposed changes aim to reduce disruption to road users and ease delivery constraints. They have the potential to give the company’s suppliers a more evenly spread timetable of work and should help to deliver future efficiency targets.

ORR has reviewed a sample of Highways England’s major schemes and carried out an in-depth review of how the company manages its assets. These reviews identified areas of good practice, but also opportunities for improvement. The company has engaged well with the reviews and committed to actions to address the issues raised.

Highways England now needs to improve its processes to show that it is delivering the right maintenance and renewals works to keep the network in good condition. It should also schedule work on its assets more evenly through the year.

Commenting on the report, Anthony Smith, chief executive of Transport Focus, said:

“Road users tell us that they want more predictable journey times.  Delivering this and managing roadworks effectively should be a future focus to deliver a road network that users want.  Our research – the National Road Users’ Satisfaction Survey – showed road users of motorways and major ‘A’ roads gave them a satisfaction rating just below the 90 per cent target at 89.1 per cent. It is reassuring to see that the Office of Rail and Road assess Highways England is performing well but need to improve their planning of road works.”

UTC

Related Content

  • March 14, 2022
    Lidar: beginning to see the light
    Lidar feels like a technology whose time has come – but why now? Adam Hill talks to manufacturers, vendors and system integrators in the sector to assess the state of play and to find out what comes next
  • November 20, 2015
    Multi-tasking at the wheel a potentially fatal myth, finds IAM
    Expert psychologists have concluded that multi-tasking whilst driving is a myth – and the most dangerous of those driving multi-tasks is texting and talking on a mobile phone, according to a new report produced by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) and the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL). The research focuses on the dangers involved when drivers try and engage in more than one task, indicating this can have a ‘detrimental’ effect on the quality and accuracy of driving performance. The find
  • July 26, 2013
    DG MOVE’s Christos Economou on the EU’s vision for road transport
    Christos Economou, Deputy Head of Unit dealing with land transport within the European Commission’s DG MOVE, describes a new framework for road charging in Europe to Jason Barnes. Within the European Union (EU), two Directives shape the legislative framework on road charging. Directive 1999/62/EC sets up a number of rules to make sure that national road charging schemes do not distort competition on the internal market or discriminate between hauliers. It is misleadingly called ‘Eurovignette’ after the comm
  • August 30, 2023
    Bright shiny green future: Asecap Sustainability Forum
    Knowing your company’s carbon footprint is one thing, but the real issue is understanding and reporting to investors Scope 3 emissions. David Arminas reports from the 2nd Asecap Sustainability Forum in Vienna, Austria