National Highways currently manage and improve over 4,300 miles of motorway and major A-roads, 10,000 miles of carriageway, 20,000 bridges and structures, 100,000 street lights, 150,000 signs, 3,500 electronic messaging signs and 100,000 sensors, including traffic sensors. In preparation for future transport needs, a series of transformation programmes are progressing the strategic road network to meet the organisation’s ambitions around environmental sustainability, customer experience, safety and innovative digital solutions.
At TRANSPORT Smart Class, South West England 2022, Future Technologies and Mobility Team Leader, Dr Paraskevi (Vivi) Michalaki, explained how National Highways is promoting the concept of Intelligent Mobility following the 9 key future trends highlighted in their “Connecting the Country” report. These include demand trends (demographic and usage shifts; on-demand consumption; connectivity), infrastructure trends (smart assets; construction innovation; reducing impact, increasing resilience) and vehicle trends (electrification; connectivity and autonomy; mobility-as-a-service). She also compared GB road traffic (by road and vehicle type) over the last 20 years and highlighted some particularly noteworthy changes since March 2020.
Vivi’s keynote presentation outlined the current research and trials to enhance journeys on the SRN, as well as the plans to deliver further advancements to enable end-to-end journeys, and improve integration with the wider transport ecosystem through collaborations beyond National Highways’ roads. For example, rethinking road space design with the local authority network with future-proofing of the network and connected and autonomous mobility in mind; acknowledging the changing needs of customers, safety and energy targets; and moving towards a more proactive approach for a safe and effective network.
If you satisfy our regular delegate qualification criteria but were unable to join us on April 28th for the live in-person event at M Shed, CLICK HERE and complete the short “Download form” (located at the bottom of the post) to receive a unique link enabling free access to the presentation video recordings and slides (including the film footage and slides from Vivi’s keynote).
Those qualifying to receive the rich presentation content from this event include commissioning, procurement, trialling and partnering leads, senior influencers, strategic decision makers and planners from: local authorities (e.g. city, borough, metropolitan, district and county councils); public and private transport operators; regional transport partnerships, sub-regional transport bodies, combined authorities, integrated transport authorities and passenger transport executives; highways authorities and road operators; government and supporting national transport agencies; fleet operators, vehicle manufacturers, parking operators, prime contractors etc.
