Chris Summers' invaluable comprehensive site.

www.highwaysmaintenance.com

Training Courses

Look for providers of NRSWA, Sector Schemes, Safety etc courses at www.hcta.co.uk - the Highways and Construction Training Association

Site Waste Management Plans (SWMP)

The WRAP website has free guidance and templates.

CIOB offers some useful videos and casestudies.

Improving surface water drainage

• A summary page from DEFRA. Includes link to the 'Living draft - Surface Water Management Plan Guidance'.
• View IHE's Drainage page

Download UK Roads Board's revised guidance:
An Annex to Well Maintained Highways

Road Note 42

Best practice guide for durability of asphalt pavements.

Maintaining pavements in a changing climate. (November 2008)

A supplement to Well Maintained Highways, available from www.tsoshop.co.uk.

Based on the TRL research publication (Effects of climate change on highway pavements)

Design Guide for road surface dressing

TRL Road Note RN 39 (September 2008)

Sustainable choice of materials for highway works

A guide for Local Authority highway engineers.

Well Maintained Highways

Additional guidance is published regularly. Section 13 on Winter Service has been revised (December 2009).

Interim Advice Note 115/08

Covers 'Guidance for Works on the hard shoulder and road side verges on high speed dual carriageways'.

Survive - safer use of roadside verges in emergencies.

Surface water drainage

A summary page from DEFRA. Includes link to the 'Living draft - Surface Water Management Plan Guidance'.

Flooding in England

Permeable / Impermeable surfaces

Read CSS (now ADEPT) guidance on highway management aspects of 2009 Flood & Water Management Bill (now enacted).

Winter Maintenance

Lessons from the Severe Weather, February 2009 - Recommendations from UK Roads Board.

Streetworks summit report with streetworks action plan published January 2010.

Proposals to introduce lane rental and increase fines announced.

Permit scheme development guidance (January 2010).

ICE State of Nation report

The role of infrastructure in a low carbon economy.

Snow Summit 2010

Organised by Essex County Council. Read the presentations.

Compensation Claims (July 2009)

Download UK Roads Board's revised guidance:
An Annex to Well Maintained Highways

University of Derby Diploma in Asphalt Technology

DfT guidance note

The DfT guidance note on Street Works qualifications published. Re-registration involves retesting.

From 6 April 2010, operatives can register for another five years only within a window of six months before and six months after expiry of the earlier registration.

From 6 April 2011, everyone will need a complete reassessment using a knowledge test before renewal of registration.

Telephone SWQR to check someone's registration: 0845 2702720

Chapter 8

A list of key changes at 21 April 2009: www.dft.gov.uk
For enquiries and comments please contact TRL.

The 2010 Revision of the Red Book is out for consultation: contact IHE.

New local Chapter 8 guidance from the 3CAP, the Midlands partnership. Contact Dave Tebbett FIHE, Nottinghamshire CC on 01623 520037.

Dealing with Removals from High Speed roads.

Download the Best Practice.

Highway Sector Schemes: an update.

Download a comprehensive guide to how sector schemes operate and what specifiers should do and with links to key contacts and documents.

Rough Roads Ahead:

The report outlines more than 30 different strategies, including Identifying investment needs, managing assets, building faster, cheaper and safer, and using smart tools. A real find from the USA.

Flooding

A national assessment of flood risk in England (EA: September 2009).

See IHE's Drainage page for guidance and news.

Surface Dressing

Click here for the latest RSTA course programme.

Comprehensive Area Assessment

It is a new tougher test for assessing the performance of local government. CAA builds on the Government's Total Place approach to check all public spending going into an area. It also looks at how well all service providers are working together to deliver improvements across an area from crime reduction, housing and tackling recession, to regeneration, sustainability and health.

CAA replace the previous system of Comprehensive Performance Assessment.

MTS and TRL's DRUM system

DRUM (Dynamic Roadspace Utilisation Manager) is a traffic management system for roadworks that is based on real-time traffic information, rather then a rigid timetable. DRUM is a web-based system designed for use by highways engineers involved in roadworks that require lane closures to dual carriageways and motorways, over and above the normal regulated hours of work.

MfS vs DMRB

The first debate was on 20 January 2009, London led by Alan Young of WSP, one of the MfS authors, and Steve Proctor of TMS, editor of the IHT Road Safety Audit guidelines. Richard Fitter, Director of Entran Ltd, was in the chair and set the scene for a lively and good humoured debate to which CABE and DfT representatives contributed.

On 20 October 2009 Stuart Reid, MVA, project leader on the DfT's shared space project, and Phil Cook, road safety expert lead the northern debate.

To view the presentations and notes of the discussion please click on the links to the right.

Next Steps

Continue the debate on the Forum.

• IHT has a contract from DfT to prepare "MfS mark 2" in late 2010 to fill the gap and additional interium guidance from DfT is likely before that is published.

• DfT has commissioned design guidelines for shared space. (Due 2011)

• Shared Space - UCL research on the effectiveness of delineators has found that the traditional warning corduroy tactile is the best performing of the delineator profiles being tested on its PAMELA simulator.

• The Urban Design group (UDAL) has set up a group bringing together all interested professionals with DfT, CABE etc under Stephen Hardy FIHE.

Scotland has published it's own Designing Streets 2009.

IHE is leading a project to develop a benchmark for Highway Inspectors training and certification.
Read the press release.

Email IHE for more information

The Register recognises competent RSAs in line with HD 19/03 and the EU infrastructure directive Article 9.

Applicants must

• meet the Register training and competence requirements
• be, and remain, a full member of a recognised professional body (eg. IHE, ICE, IHT, IRSO) and be bound by its code of ethics and conduct
• complete at least 2 days of relevant CPD each calendar year.

A certificate of registration will be issued confirming the level of registration - Foundation, Practitioner or Lead Practitioner.

The Register will be published on www.theihe.org.

Registrants will be asked to provide their CPD records and plans for an annual check.
If you are not a full member of IHE there is an annual fee of £50.00.

To Join

Download the Application Form and when completed submit it to membership@theihe.org.

Please do not send hardcopies we only accept electronic submissions.

Applications will be assessed on receipt by three suitably qualified members of the IHE Membership & Qualifications Committee.

Download the procedures and entry standards..

New TMS Certificate of Competence

The European Directive on Road Infrastructure Management requires that by 2013 road safety auditors working on the trans European Road Network (TERN) will need to undergo road safety engineering training resulting in the award of a "certificate of competence".

From June 2010 delegates attending the 10 day RoSPA/TMS Road Safety Engineering course will be able to gain such a Certificate of Competence.

The following Auditors have been assessed by IHE as meeting the appropriate level of registration.

Foundation

March 2010

Steven Bentley, Senior Technician, Cheshire West and Chester Council

Practitioner

September 2009

Beth Duncan, Independent auditor
Dennis Symons, Road Safety Engineer, EnterpriseMouchel
Lyn Salmon, Road Safety Audit Manager, EnterpriseMouchel
Tom Cowie, Road Safety Manager, Warrington BC

June 2009

Malcolm James, Highway Safety Auditor, Devon CC

Lead Practitioner

March 2010

Harminder Aulak, Senior Engineer, Traffic Management & Safety Ltd

David George, Principal Road Safety Engineer, Hyder Consulting (UK) Limited

Nick Newton, Team Leader Road Safety, Consulting - Highways, Amey

Steve Warrington, Transport Development Officer, Leicester City Council

September 2009

Miles Fletcher-Brown, Consultant Engineer, Transportation Planning International Ltd
Chris Young, Senior Engineer, Waterman Aspen

June 2009

Alan Rookes, Associate Director, Capita Symonds

Andrew R. Harris, Team Leader, Atkins Consultants

20 mph campaign packs (July 2009)

Creating Healthy Environments (LA toolkit)

Active Travel Strategy

Published by DfT.

Training Courses

• Aston University has two distance learning courses:
  - MSc Traffic Engineering
  - MSc Transport Planning
• PTRC offers its 17 Traffic and Transportation modules as e-learning.

Inclusive design

• Design guidance from I'DGO based on older people's preferences (December 2009).

• Shared space delineators - are they detectable?: a TfL Report produced by UCL using its PAMELA facility suggests corduroy paving is worth trying (May 2010).

Transport data

New public government website www.data.gov.uk

Highway and safety product demos

NAL is offering regular free demonstrations of a wide range of products from several manufacturers of passively safe signals and sign posts. For more information on the next demonstration day click here >>
There's also a fully ducted knockdown site. sales@nal.ltd.uk or call 01905 427100.

The 2010 Act enacted April 2010 requires:

• SUDS on all new developments "where practicable", enforced by planning conditions
• Permeable paving
• Counties and Unitaries to adopt and maintain all new SUDS schemes
• New national standards for approval, adoption and connection to the public sewer.

Find out more in Chris Saunder's report on IHE's special seminar on 21 April 2010 and view the presentations from Defra, EA, Oxfordshire, Cambridge and Water companies.

Read IHE's summary of the Act.

Read CSS (now ADEPT) guidance on highway management aspects of 2009 Flood & Water Management Bill (now enacted).

2. SUDS resources

• www.ciria.org.uk/suds/ for Interim Code of Practice, training, adoption issues, publications and case studies.
• SUDS for Roads - the Scottish Government Guide (published August 2009) - an invaluable comprehensive guidance.
• SNIFFER the Scottish research forum.
• Understanding Permeable Paving: Designed to help all those involved with development to understand permeable paving and SUDS.. It includes overall design, long-term performance, costs and adoption issues.
  Free from Interpave www.paving.org.uk/permeable.php
• Designing for SUDS: CIRIA courses.
• Case studies from CIRIA, Mayer Brown's research trials at Waterlooville and the Scottish SUDS database.
• SUDSnet: the UK national SUDS network. Register for news and events.

3. Design and adoption guides

• Read Oxfordshire's SUDS guidance for new developments.
• Cambridge County has published the first monitoring results of its Lamb Drove SUDS development. These will inform Defra's 2011 guidance.
• Cambridge City SUDS design and adoption guide (December 2009)

4. Assessing flood risk

• Improving Surface Water Drainage - A summary of DEFRA involvements. Includes Surface Water Management Plan Guidance (March 2010).
• Oxfordshire CC and West Sussex CC have been mapping their Drainage Assets.
• Planning Policy Statement 25: Development and flood risk - sets out the government's spatial planning policy on development and flood risk.

5. Training

• CIRIA is the leading provider of training for England and Wales.
• Culvert design and operation guide (C689) published by CIRIA, April 2010.
• Email Phil Chatfield to request access to the Environment Agency's web-based training on SUDS and the Flood & Water Act (Local Authorities only).

Kent and Essex have returned to specifying a minimum number of spaces. Others are applying the Residential Parking Research for PPS3.

The IHE Parking debate on 28 January 2010 bought together key players on parking standards, Bob White, Kent CC and Keith Lawson, Essex CC with Stephen Hardy, Dorset CC in the chair.

The main messages were:

• Good design is essential to optimise parking provision tailored to particular sites
• Highways and Planning must work together to deliver realistic design
• Restricted parking is not a modal shift tool: residents find (unsuitable) ways round
• LAs' parking policies should be evidence-led: collect your data
• Avoid design by the book; be creative
• Garage size should be part of parking policies.

What are your guidelines?

'Predict and provide'?

or, travel plans and minimum provision?

View the 28 January IHE parking debate presentations here.

Download the powerpoint presentations here.

• Stephen Hardy, Dorset CC
• Bob White, Kent CC
• Keith Lawson, Essex CC

2. Parking Standards

View Essex's Standards (September 2009).
View CSS Wales' Wales Parking Standards (September 2009)
PPS3 - Parking: Research paper using census data to predict car demand
View Scotland's policy(Section 171) (February 2010)
Birmingham City has set zones and sticks to PPG13 for the suburbs (May 2010)

Dorset Residential parking study

Launch event in Poundbury on 28 April 2010 will explore the "calculator" methodology developed to translate data nto action.

3. Non residential developments

PPS4 published 29 December 2009 requires LAs to set maximum parking sandards (See Policy EC.8)

Parking: Minimising signs and lines

Implementing restricted zones in

• Glasgow (A paper by Tony Hughes - 2006)
• Bury St Edmunds (An extract from Manual for Historic Streets from EHTF)
• English Heritage HELM Case Study - Parking Restrictions without Yellow Lines

Policy overview

Development of Dorset Parking Standards
Calculation for DC Officers.

Bob White - Presentation

Key issues in Kent

Case studies

Keith Lawson - Presentation

Setting out - intentions

What Group did

Examples

The issues and the outcomes

The asset management working group of the UK Roads Board has produced guidance on asset management; the guidance comprises four documents that form a singe suite to provide a good overview.

• Highway Asset Management Quick Start Guidance note - getting started
• Highway Asset Management Quick Start Guidance note - risk assessment
• Highway Asset Management Quick Start Guidance note - levels of service
• Highway Asset Management Quick Start Guidance note - life cycle planning

The County Surveyors Society (CSS), together with the Local Authority Technical Advisors Group (TAG) have produced

• the Highways Asset Management Framework (June 2004).

• the Asset Valuation Guidance (Atkins 2005).

Both documents are companions to the UK Roads Liaison Group suite of maintenance Codes of Practice.

• The latest document is the Review of Transport Asset Management Plans (January 2008).

• CIPFA Code of practice on transport infrastructure assets : Guidance to support asset management, financial management and reporting (March 2010).

• See also IHE's Drainage page on Flood Risk, SUDs etc.

Scotland

SCOTS Road Asset Management website has links to a number of publically available documents:

• CIPFA Transport Infrastructure Assets Code for financial management (March 2010).
• CIRIA C677 - Whole-life infrastructure asset management, good practice guide for civil infrastructure (2009).
• CIPFA Review - HM Treasury Response (2008).
• A Guide to Asset Management and Capital Planning in Local Authorities (CIPFA 2008).
• DCLG Framework for LA Asset Management (February 2008).
• Highways Asset Management Papers (England).
• Examples of Road Asset Management Plan Documents (Scotland).

IHE Training

In-house and regional courses delivered by exp consulting are now available.

Delegates are assessed and, if successful, are awarded an IHE Professional Certificate.

NCE holds an annual conference.

The 2009 papers are available here.

Reassure yourself - good, evidence based design reduces risks.

A guide to Annex C to Well Maintained Highways.

Reclaiming our Rural Roads

View the presentations from the IHE July 2010 conference held in conjunction with Northumberland CC, Northumberland National Park Authority, Northumberland Coast AONB and North Pennines AONB, with speakers from Luck Associates, Hamilton-Baille Associates, Entran Ltd, Friends of the Lake District, WSP Group, Campaign to Protect Rural England and Colin Buchanan.

General Guidance

Principles of road signing in rural areas

Check out CPRE's 'principles for road signage in rural areas'.
Click here for more information

Rural Roads at Risk

A research report with a significant section on signing in the Lake District.

Including Landscape in Road Design (CA217)

A discussion note based on three casestudies of mitigation.

Assessing the effect of road schemes on historic landscapes

Part of DMRB Volume II.

CPRE/RAC Foundation decluttering campaign

Civic Voice Street Pride Campaign (2010)

Road Furniture in the Countryside

Transport Scotland guidance on reducing the visual impact of signs etc.

Reclaiming our Rural Highways

Available on CD from www.dorsetaonb.org.uk/.

Rural Streets and Lanes (July 2009)

Kent AONB draft guidance.

Parking: Minimising signs and lines

Implementing restricted zones in

• Glasgow (A paper by Tony Hughes - 2006)
• Bury St Edmunds (An extract from Manual for Historic Streets from EHTF)
• English Heritage HELM Case Study - Parking Restrictions without Yellow Lines