Skip to main content

Kent County Council and Highways England partner on road management

Drivers in Kent are set to benefit from better journeys thanks to a new agreement between Kent County Council and Highways England. The new partnership agreement will improve planning and communication between the two organisations and improve journeys for the many thousands of drivers who use Kent’s road network every day. The two organisations will share information about incidents better to improve the information on the county’s message signs. Roadworks will be co-ordinated to ensure that the dive
June 3, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
Drivers in Kent are set to benefit from better journeys thanks to a new agreement between 2222 Kent County Council and 8101 Highways England.

The new partnership agreement will improve planning and communication between the two organisations and improve journeys for the many thousands of drivers who use Kent’s road network every day.

The two organisations will share information about incidents better to improve the information on the county’s message signs. Roadworks will be co-ordinated to ensure that the diversion routes are available while the county’s roads are improved.

The agreement includes: Protocols on agreeing and using diversion routes whenever a major road has to close; More flexible use of electronic road signs giving drivers a more complete view of road conditions ahead; Setting out how the organisations will work together during major events in Kent; A joined up approach to helping drivers prepare for driving during winter; and Renewing commitments to support road users when Operation Stack is in place

Simon Sheldon-Wilson, director of Customer Operations at Highways England said: “Customers rightly expect a consistent experience when using main roads and motorways. This agreement, the first of its kind, will help both organisations to provide that by bringing together best practice and building on the positive, day-to-day relationship we already have with Kent County Council. It will form a guide which anyone in either of our organisations can call upon and help provide a seamless service for customers across Kent.”

Roger Wilkin, director of Highways, Transportation & Waste at Kent County Council, said: “We have worked closely with Highways England to identify how we can improve the way we work together to better manage the highway network across Kent. We have developed a partnership agreement with the aim of empowering road users to better plan their journey and improve their journey times. Through effective joint working we will be able to minimise congestion and disruption, better manage incidents, improve planning for major events and optimise use of our assets to deliver effective messaging and consistent communication.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Dynamic lane closures cuts time, cost and congestion on Motorway roadworks
    March 17, 2014
    A combination of technologies is leading to major congestion and cost reductions during roadworks on the UK’s motorway network. Innovative construction programme scheduling technology and the deployment of moveable barriers has achieved substantial savings of money and time on UK motorway roadworks managed by the Highways Agency (HA). This combination has set the scene for a new generation of road usage analysis tools. The HA’s objective was to reduce the congestion caused by lane closures during roa
  • Hertfordshire’s traffic control centre ‘improves congestion’
    March 13, 2013
    As part of a wider Hertfordshire County Council strategy to ease congestion across the county, the council is installing variable message signs to provide live incident information, managed by a centralised control centre at County Hall. The centre opened in October last year at a cost of around US$600,000 and is operated by eighteen staff, who monitor the county’s road network. If an accident occurs, traffic signals can be adjusted and messages displayed in a bid to redirect traffic ease congestion. Mainte
  • Measuring the effectiveness of winter VMS
    August 5, 2013
    A survey into the effectiveness of weather-related variable message signs on a trans-mountain highway has some interesting results, as Alexis Bacelar told ITS Europe. A study in the Massif Central region of France evaluating the usefulness of winter weather warning signs has highlighted the effect of variable message signs on driver behaviour. During the winter of 2009-2010, road operator Massif Central Direction Interdépartementale des Routes (MC DIR) started installing bad weather-specific variable messag
  • Real time active traffic management improves travel times
    July 17, 2012
    Traffic management centres (TMC) have traditionally served to provide surveillance and responses to traffic incidents and recurring and non-recurring changes in road networks. Typically, a TMC collected field data from the roadway and transit infrastructure and provided the integration necessary for operators to see what was happening and then coordinate a response. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) guided operators on how to respond to a given situation. It eventually became impractical for TMC operat