Managing Local Transportation Assets - Essay Example

Introduction Road traffic in Leeds has grown by 6.4% between 1995 and 2005. Commuting to work into the District has increased rapidly in recent years and is projected to increase further with traffic flows on some sections of the Inner Ring Road now exceeding 80,000 vehicles a day. The District has a well developed road network with good strategic links from the centre to the rest of the region and elsewhere. Public transport, walking and cycling play a vital role in meeting a very significant travel need in the community as around 35% of households do not have access to a car. Approximately 6% (004) of all peak hour journeys to Leeds are made by bus; the main form of urban and inter-urban public transport in the District. In 1991, Leeds City Council and the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority adopted a 0 year Transport Strategy which has resulted in a range of transport improvements across the city. More recently the Vision for Leeds (004- 0) has defined the long-term aims for transport in Leeds: To provide a safe, sustainable and modern transport system; To improve regional, national and international transport connections; To reduce the need for travel; and To create a sustainable travel culture. West Yorkshire Local Transport Plan (LTP) supports these objectives and has developed up-to date policies and strategy to provide a detailed action plan for 006 to 011 for delivering a package of integrated transport improvements in Leeds and across West Yorkshire and replaces the previous plan adopted in 001. LTP is structured around the nationally agreed 'shared priorities' for transport, which include tackling congestion, improving accessibility, better road safety and air quality. Considerable consultation has taken place to inform the development of the final plan, which was submitted, to the Department for Transport at the end of March 006. Proper lighting system The Local Authorities trust that the lighting system gives adequate attention to the need to ensure good road safety and to reduce street crime. Good, well-designed lighting is an effective practical way to reducing road accidents, crimes and the fear of crime, to aid greater uptake of public transport, and to enhance transport and community safety. Lighting also has an important role in helping to create good conditions for mobility, particularly walking and cycling. This helps in creating an environment that is pleasant and interesting as well as satisfying the basic functional objectives for lighting. By integrating the Government's policy on planning control and light pollution, this would otherwise help reducing the impact of light pollution for a number of reasons, including the effects of lighting on people, wildlife and countryside character. The Government should consider solving problems arising from artificial lighting by raising awareness, providing advice and by encouraging more effective use of existing planning powers. Provision of indicative allocations of funding for street lighting as part of any future local transport plan settlements and consideration of further measures are required to ensure progress in this important area. Street lighting should not be the poor relation to road and pathway maintenance they are all part of a safe and secure street unenvironment. At present the Government's funding for street lighting replacement comes trough formula grant and PFI credits for specific street lighting projects. In March this year the Government announced a bidding round for an additional 300 million of PFI credits for street lighting projects. Local Transport Plan The Local Transport Plan process provides authorities with indicative allocations for capital maintenance as a whole and integrated transport improvements as a whole. The system replaced annual Transport Policies and Programme submissions, which allocated money on a more project specific basis to a finer sub-division of project types. The change to Local Transport Plans provides authorities with more flexibility in determining spending priorities locally and enabled there to be less central monitoring of local projects. Indicative allocations specifically for street lighting would erode these disadvantages of the Local transport road system. PFI (Private Finance Initiative) for road and street lighting Maintenance is also applicable in a minority of cases. Good maintenance is the least that the travelling public deserves. So by partnering with Private finance initiative (PFI) funding should be considered for local authority projects where the authority has demonstrated that there is a good transport case for investment and that PFI offers value for money against a Public Sector Comparator, which is procurement by more traditional routes. Bidding Strategy To date six local authorities have signed private finance deals with Government support amounting to 98 million PFI credits and a further six have PFI credits from Government amounting to 165million for street lighting scheme development. With a competitive development of the street lighting market, the Government should introduce a PFI bidding process. Local authorities in England but outside London should invite to bid for an allocation from 300 million PFI credits which are made available for street lighting. The Government Office for London has a further 42.5 million remaining from an allocation of 85 million PFI credits to assign to London Boroughs over the next three years for street lighting PFI projects in London. The bidding process will allow schemes to be compared against each other so that PFI funding is allocated effectively. The efficiencies gained by using PFI mean that more projects can be taken forward. Reviewing of Codes The Department and the Highway Authorities and Utilities Committee (HAUC) on which both utility companies and local authorities are represented have revised the existing statutory /Code of Practice for the Co-ordination of Street/Works and Works for Road Purposes, which, amongst other things, governs the minimum period of notice which utility companies must give highway authorities of forthcoming works. HAUC proposing for the extension for advance notice enquirement for major works from one to three month. The recommendations here is that companies intending to carry out works in an area should ensure that they are represented at local co-ordination meetings, so that their works can be effectively co-ordinated with works by other utilities or the local highway authority. The recommendation for the extension from twelve months to two years the period of protection for newly resurfaced roads has helped to ensure better forward planning and co-ordination. However, local authorities should formulate the scheme to grow by providing details of their forward programmes of planned resurfacing over longer periods so that all parties involved can co-ordinate their works. The review of 2001 Department's Code of Practice has ensured that the interpretation of the Act is consistent amongst utilities and local authorities. This gives a clear guidance that ensures that the Act works to reduce congestion on the streets rather than increasing it in the courts. Under the Street Works (Charges for Unreasonably Prolonged Occupation of the Highway) (England) Regulations 2001, the undertaker should give a notice when they have completed works. It is already an offence to fail to give such a notice. However, the consideration to replace certain criminal offences in relation to street works, including the failure to produce notices, with fixed penalty fines has improved enforcement and to drive up standards. Traffic managers Keeping traffic moving is important and already a key function of local authorities. There is no implication that the new traffic manager is more important than pedestrian safety or the environment. Traffic managers, working within local authorities and using the authorities' powers, should tailor authorities to improve the management of the road network. The proposal which was brought forward in the Traffic Management Bill has prompted authorities to pay more attention to the management of the road network and the traffic using it, in order to reduce congestion and disruption. But in exercising their powers authorities would have to have regard to their various other duties and responsibilities, including safety. Government officials should consult with representatives of local authorities and utilities, with a view to working closely with these groups and others to develop guidance for authorities on managing their road networks, and any regulations required to implement those proposals. Road Improvement Money Programme In 2005-2006, Transportation and Public Works has continued to increase funding for two major initiatives to help improve the road infrastructure. The Road Improvement Money program provides funding for maintenance of rural roads. The program provides funding for resurfacing, restoration, rehabilitation and reconstruction of the highways. The Department provides public safety communication services and/or systems to various organizations, such as government departments, the police, emergency response teams, and volunteer organizations. Work should therefore be undertaken to plan for new corporate field communication systems and for new field communications services for Volunteer Public Safety. Also the expansion of Road Weather Information System (RWIS) should ensure province-wide coverage that provides important weather data for regional services as well as highway cameras which are used by the motoring public. Route Management Strategy (RMS) Route Management Strategies should be undertaken by the Highways Agency on the entire core trunk road network to provide a framework for managing individual trunk routes as part of wider transport networks. The motive is to ensure that the management of each route interlocks with local transport strategies (set out in Local Transport Plans) within the context established by Regional Planning Guidance. The technique is developed in order to: Assist the Highways Agency (HA) in planning and optimizing investment in the trunk road/motorway network, (across different budget headings), and in the delivery of HA strategic plans and ten year transport strategy. Provide consistency, transparency, openness and integration, particularly with other transport related strategies, including local and regional transport plans. Enable the HA to provide an input into these strategies and plans Maximise customer focus. Improve forward planning over a 10-year horizon. Route Management Strategies (RMSs) embrace the Government's five policy objectives for transport: The RMS for a particular route provide a framework for the development of a comprehensive management and investment plan for all Highways Agency's activities along a route. These strategies will be of interest to other transport and network operators who either use the route or who may wish to provide complementary investment through their operations. Route investment interlinked with transport and land use strategies, are promoted through the Regional planning Bodies, Regional Transport Strategies and Local Plans. Similarly, proposed actions are subject to confirmation of funding through the existing bidding/allocation process. This means that the Route Action Plan must be reviewed annually in the light of progress made, financial allocations received and in light of any changes to planning policies. Establishing Legal Ownership The formal way of establishing ownership and assigning primary responsibility for management to a particular road authority - is by designating the road. In this way, responsibility for certain roads is assigned to central government, local government, or to a private entity (for example, as in the case of private sector toll roads). The functional class of the road may also raise the need to reclassify selected roads and transfer them from one highway authority to another. As far as possible, this process should avoid splitting responsibility. One agency or, when delegation is considered desirable, arrangements for delegating ideally manage trunk roads and paying for the delegated responsibilities (e.g., maintenance) should therefore be clearly spelled out. Hence when roads are constructed or upgraded as part of programs in other sectors (for example, agriculture and forestry), they should be planned in collaboration with the potential road agency and then designated and assigned to them once construction is complete. Restructuring Existing Road Agencies A lot of restructuring is currently going on. It varies from the kind of mild restructuring going on in other places around the globe. The objective is nearly always the same. To introduce a more commercial approach to management of roads, by creating: more autonomous and accountable management; a more market-based approach to setting priorities; better staff incentives; a more flexible staffing structure; and better accounting systems combined with tighter financial discipline. Management boards are becoming increasingly common. The highway advisory board of England for example has independent chairmen and includes members representing road users and the business community. In some cases, there are independent chairmen and members. The board should in this case perform an advisory role or they may be non-executive boards having full "control of the management, property, business, funds and any other matters relating to the (highway authority). Executive Road Boards The boards are to delegate day-to-day management of the road agency to a Chief Executive, who is assisted by several line managers responsible for functions such as maintenance, development, finance, and administration. Some examples of the membership and functions of some road management boards. The road agency still reports to a parent ministry, as do other transport enterprises. The relationship between the board and the ministry can often be a source of conflict, particularly when someone from the ministry is chairman of the board. The best arrangements appear to be where the chairman of the board is independent, then the road agency prepares a rolling corporate plan and then uses that to negotiate an annual performance contract with the parent ministry (the Minister). Other reforms tend to focus on reducing staff by contracting out most design, supervision and implementation work, improving terms and conditions of employment, strengthening other staff incentives (for example, through payment of bonuses, provision of training, etc.), and permitting the board to hire and fire staff on a normal competitive basis. Redundant staff is offered redundancy packages, and generally receive other forms of support to help them become small-scale contractors. Complementary reforms generally focus on financing arrangements, introduction of modern management information systems, commercial accounting systems (including a balance sheet to record assets), and independent technical and financial auditing. Contracting Out Planning and Management of Roads. Existing road agencies have the capacity to contract out planning and management of selected roads to consultants and contractors. This strategy should be done for entire road networks, and also for donor-financed small infrastructure projects (through the so-called AGETIP model). The first model was began in UK in 1986 when the UK Department of Transport decided to package parts of the motorway network into commissions and then invited bids from consultants to take on the responsibility for maintaining all roads and related structures within the commission to a prescribed standard. The winning consultant then organizes a competitive Term Contract between the owner (Department of Transport) and the contractor who then carries out all work on instruction from the consultant. The AGETIP is a contract-executing agency (like a private sector project implementation unit), set up to execute donor-financed infrastructure projects. The agency generally has a board composed of well known figures (which does not include government representatives), a general manager appointed by the board, other line managers (administrative & financial manager, and technical manager), and staff hired under private sector terms & conditions of service who are paid competitive salaries. The agency is set up as a private, non-profit association and pays no taxes. The agency works on behalf of local authorities who delegate certain functions to the agency. The local government usually reserves the right to select the projects and the agency then: recruits consultants to carry out detailed engineering; invites bids and awards contracts for supervision and works, manages the contracts, and pays the contractors directly from a special account opened in its own name. The agency is subject to bi-monthly management and financial audits, and an annual technical audit. The Roads Policing Strategy Major Government initiatives such as the Office of Science and Technology Foresight Programme are so relevant in waging roads maintenance campaign. Foresight aims to increase UK exploitation of science either by identifying potential opportunities for the economy or society from new science and technologies, or by considering how future science and technologies could address key future challenges for society. By 2010-2011, the ten largest urban areas will meet the congestion targets set in their Local Transport Plan relating to movement on main roads into city centres. Reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured in Great Britain in road accidents by 40%- the number of children killed or seriously injured by 50%, by 2010 compared with the average for 1994-1998. Tackling the significantly higher incidence in disadvantaged communities and a 10% reduction in the slight casualty rate against the same timescales. By 2010 increased use of public transport (bus and light rail) will rise by more than 12% in England compared with 2000 levels, with growth in every region. Improved air quality by meeting the Air Quality Strategy targets for carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, particles, sulphur dioxide, benzene and 1,3 butadiene (responsibility for delivering this target is shared with DEFRA). Reduced greenhouse gas emissions to 12.5% below 1990 levels in line with the Kyoto commitment and move towards a 20% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions below 1990 levels by 2010 (responsibility for delivering this target is shared with DEFRA and DTI). Improved Road Network Management Congestion is an increasing problem across the world. It is partly a consequence of increasing economic prosperity as more people have jobs, and more people travel further. Congestion wastes time, causes unpleasant driving conditions and pollution. A major impact is that it causes journey times to be unpredictable and this uncertainty can lead to travellers allowing unnecessarily for exceptional delays in their journey planning. The European Commission identifies congestion as a major barrier to mobility. The Future of Transport as documented in the White Paper (together with the more recent Managing Our Roads document) acknowledges that most roads function well most of the time. But both highlight a need for improving safety, effective delivery of more road capacity where appropriate, better management of the roads by, providing information to allow travellers to make better choices about when and how to travel, and development of practical new ways to pay for road use. Delays may be caused by volume of traffic, road works or accidents and incidents such as broken down vehicles or abnormal load movements. Implementation of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) Adoption of new technology can help tackle congestion and improve network management. ITS in particular: provides the tools and techniques to measure congestion; provides systems to manage the existing road network better through in-vehicle systems and the infrastructure; supports delivery of real-time traffic and traveller information provides the means to implement road pricing; and increases capacity of the existing road network. The Government should develop a road pricing strategy. It is a governments obligation to undertake the work needed to make choices about whether road pricing would be beneficial, and in what form, taking account of effectiveness, fairness, value for money and other relevant factors. ITS can provide the means to deliver road pricing and to ensure end-to-end interoperability of individual systems. Local authorities have the powers to introduce local congestion charging schemes and are already being encouraged to propose pilots of innovative solutions through the Transport Innovation Fund. DfT is also running the major technical research programme that includes trials of end-to-end systems in collaboration with Leeds Council. Active and co-ordinated management of large area networks is a key step in tackling congestion. ITS can help - and already does. For example, the National Traffic Control Centre (NTCC) and Regional Control Centres (RCC) are key supporting tools providing ITS-enabled information services that bring together all the national and local network management authorities. They gather real time information on road network conditions from a communications network, which includes Regional Control Centres, and data from the Travel Information Highway, cameras, weather stations and information from the Police and Traffic Officers. The EC has published an ITS vision and policy which puts underpinning technology-related initiatives at the heart of the policy agenda. The vision includes the drive to implement Galileo under the Europe banner as a complementary global positioning system to sit alongside existing GPS systems and encourage greater deployment of GNSS technologies that use location referencing to support many ITS services. Europe also provides an additional policy context for advanced ticketing and vehicle-related ITS (the e Safety initiative). In addition, the Trans-European Road Network aims to unlock barriers and encourage more effective cross-border transport. It supports demonstrations of harmonised ITS deployment through its Multi-annual Indicative Programme. Other funding is available through the European Framework research programmes. Seven transport policy themes for ITS) Government policies and DfT targets highlight the role that technology generally - and ITS specifically - has to play in helping to deliver transport that works for everyone now and in the future. This Framework identifies seven discrete policy themes where ITS applications can (and often already do) play a pivotal role for road transport and travellers. Each theme is discussed in a separate section in the remainder of this document. The data collected is being made widely available to support network management and travel information services.) A National Audit Office report on the Highways Agency published in November 2004 identifies opportunities where the HA could make better use of ITS technologies in delivering its network operator functions. Indicators and Benchmarks The West Yorkshire authorities believe that a performance indicator based on the full 100% survey would be a more realistic overall measure of carriageway condition and that the 2005-06 result would be best compared with a baseline of 21.1%. BVPI 187 measures the condition of prestige, primary and secondary walking routes. Fifty percent of these footways are surveyed each year using UKPMS DVI surveys and three years of data have now been collected. The improvement in 2004-05 initially appears to be significant. However the West Yorkshire authorities believe that trends can be better assessed by taking a 100% sample over a two-year period. To maximise the opportunity to benchmark with other authorities, local performance indicators have been selected from previous District Audit performance indicators. In particular monitoring continues on the response time to the repair of dangerous defects and performance is now consistently in excess of 95% made safe within 24 hours. In addition the West Yorkshire Authorities have benchmarked the highways public liability claims procedures. Serviceability indicators are generally being customised by individual districts in response to their own Best Value consultations and reflect local needs unique to each district. They are therefore not appropriate for group benchmarking. Highway maintenance has a significant contribution to make in support BV187 of the initiatives underpinning the LTP. The proper maintenance of footways, carriageways, structures and street lighting is considered vital in meeting the LTP objectives. Bridge Assessments Funding is provided through the LTP for the assessment and strengthening, where necessary of highway structures to ensure that they can safely carry vehicles up to 40 tonnes gross weight which have been allowed on roads in the UK since January 1999. The table below show bridges completely assessed. Background Indicator C4 shows the progress on assessment of all bridges greater than 1.5m span under ownership of Districts, Network Rail, Rail Property Ltd., British Waterways and other private organisations and includes all classes of road. An increase in the percentage of bridges assessed shows progress towards completion of the program. Completion of the assessment program will identify the full extent of the required bridge strengthening and allow funding to be targeted more effectively. However, future assessments will be required whenever an inspection of the bridge shows changes in its condition that may have an adverse effect on its load carrying capacity. However there will be no defined assessment programme and no further need for this indicator. The graph below shows bridges completed and assessed. Berwick, Ben C. (1990). Bridges Strengthened Where an assessment shows that a bridge fails to meet the requirements of Department of Transport Standard BD21, interim traffic management measures or a monitoring regime are applied as necessary. The bridge is put into the programme for strengthening or a permanent weight restriction (or other traffic management measures) is implemented. This includes all bridges under the ownership of Districts, Network Rail, Rail Property Ltd., British Waterways and other private owners. Das, P.C. (1996). It is expressed as a percentage of all bridges in the assessment programme, which have to date, failed to reach the 40 tonne loading capacity. It includes bridges with temporary footway / verge restrictions as well as temporary carriageway restrictions and bridges which are subject to monitoring but excludes bridges where a permanent weight restriction at the level of the assessed capacity is acceptable. At current levels of funding the bridge strengthening programme is expected to last another 9 or 10 years for Council-owned bridges allowing for sub-standard bridges under monitoring regimes and at least 10 years for privately-owned bridges, in particular Network Rail bridges. As the outstanding assessments are completed, newly identified weak bridges are then added to the list of bridges requiring strengthening, hence increasing the timescale. In order to achieve a target of 100% bridges strengthened by 2011 a substantial increase in the level of funding will be required. Condition Indicators. Bridge Condition Indicators are produced in association with the general and principal inspection programmes, which will provide a more accurate measure of the condition of the highway bridge stock. The function of a bridge is to support the road, which in turn provides a transport facility for the user. If any part of the structure is closed or restricted for any reason, traffic will be disrupted and there will be resulting cost and inconvenience to the user. Fisher, John W. and William D. Michalerya. (1990). The overall functional requirement for bridge management, therefore, is to keep road user disruption to the minimum. The percentage of structures with temporary weight or width restrictions is used as a simple indicator, Background Indicator C6b, to monitor performance in this area. Overall, there is a slight decrease in restrictions over the year, reflecting the ongoing strengthening programme. As the assessment programme nears completion, this trend should continue of strengthening schemes for privately owned structures are often out of the Councils' control. The public expects bridges to be safe to use. As bridge collapses are extremely rare, this expectation of safety is almost absolute. To ensure the public's expectation is met as well as carrying out the bridge assessment programmes and implementing interim measures or monitoring sub-standard structures prior to strengthening. All Districts in West Yorkshire carry out programmes of general and principal inspections based on the recommendations of BD 63 "The Inspection of Highway Structures". Preventative Maintenance Steady state maintenance is required to maintain a bridge in serviceable condition. Steady state maintenance can be split into preventative and essential maintenance as defined in the report prepared by the CSS Bridges Group in February 2000, "Funding for Bridge Maintenance". In past years the LTP allocations for highway structures have been concentrated on strengthening rather than maintenance schemes resulting in a maintenance backlog which has needed to be addressed to ensure the continued functionality and safety of the structures and therefore the highway network. During 2004/05 more funding has been directed towards maintenance schemes. Background Indicator C6c monitors the percentage of highway structures requiring preventative and essential maintenance. The number of structures requiring preventative or essential maintenance at March 2005 is 1156 or 62% of the bridge stock compared with 59% at March 2004. This indicates a marginal decrease over the year in the condition of the highway structures stock, excluding walls, it and confirms that the level of outstanding maintenance remains high. Preventative maintenance is the most cost-effective way of keeping costs of replacement and rehabilitation of the structures stock at a manageable and steady level. It is estimated that expenditure on preventative measures of the order of 0.35% of the Gross Replacement Cost of the structures stock will be required annually to meet the target. It is estimated at present that the required annual expenditure on essential maintenance is around 0.5% of the Gross Replacement Cost of the structures stock. These percentages are broadly in line with the recommendations of the Highways Agency Paper 'Performance Objectives, Indicators and Targets for the Maintenance of Highway Structures'and the CSS Bridges Group report 'Funding for Bridge Maintenance'. These expenditure figures take no account of the existing backlog of outstanding maintenance, which would require additional expenditure before the steady state approach could be taken. Bridge Condition Indicators are therefore used to target funding, to indicate whether the overall condition of the highway structures stock is deteriorating and whether adequate funding is being provided for the maintenance of highway structures. Glagola, D.M. & W.T. Scherer (1992) Conclusion Managing of highways sets out the challenges over the next 20 to 30 years in providing opportunities to travel, as the economy grows, while taking into account impacts on the environment. Tomorrow's roads should be safer for everyone and should look beyond 2010 and identify the major potential for technological advances to make roads even safer for drivers, pedestrians and other users. Future land transport should therefore be built around three key themes; sustained investment over time, improvements in transport management, and planning ahead. Research shows that by 2025 there will be a 40% increase in road traffic approximately over 2000 figures. It specifically identifies the need for road networks that are enhanced by better management, including through exploiting the potential of new technology to manage the network and inform travellers. De La Garza, Jesus M. and Panagiotis Mitropoulos. (1991). New technologies should be adopted to reduce the risk of accidents and support environmental protection objectives. The Government's need to encourage sustainable freight transport and identifies the role of new technologies as part of the core objectives that support the provision of efficient and reliable inter-regional transport systems; Deliver improvements to the accessibility, punctuality and reliability of local and regional transport systems; Balance the need to travel with the need to improve quality of life by improving safety and respecting the environment; and Improve cost-effectiveness. References: Anderson, John A., Walter P. Kilareski, and Charles H. Goodspeed. (1997). 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