How can we ensure Scotland’s roads are fit for the future? That was the challenging question facing a panel of experts at this year’s Traffex Scotland exhibition. The exhibition – held for the first time at the SEC in Glasgow – attracted a large number of contractors, consultants, manufacturers and suppliers involved in the design, management and maintenance of Scotland’s roads and bridges.

Future-proofing the roads network was one of several seminars at the exhibition covering highway maintenance and development. The speakers on the panel were: Eddie Ross and Andy Thomson from BEAR Scotland (which maintains Scotland’s roads), Mark Arndt from Amey (a leading supplier of consulting and infrastructure support services both in the UK and internationally) and Evan Ferguson from Scotland Transerv (which manages and maintains more than 600 kilometres of trunk road and motorway network across South West Scotland).

The panel highlighted the challenges facing road maintenance engineers in assessing the current state of Scotland’s road network, and agreed that one of the key factors driving successful future development was to gain an understanding of the travel habits of the future. Gathering and sharing data will form the backbone of this understanding, enabling traffic managers to model, monitor and control the effects of travel as well as reducing congestion.

But the basics of road maintenance will always apply. Scotland has a diverse road network, and while trunk roads in the north of the country are often single carriage, requiring considerable improvements, elsewhere the challenges relate to capacity. Maintaining those roads, developing them for the future and ensuring minimum disruption to travellers and the economy are all exercising the minds of traffic engineers.

The climate and the weather are also important drivers of change. The panel wholeheartedly agreed that water is the road engineer’s enemy, and the increasingly wet weather experienced by Scotland can often lead to disruption for travellers.

The Scottish Government’s recent consultation on its National Transport Strategy highlighted extreme weather events, such as 2018’s “Beast from the East”, which cost the UK economy at least £1 billion per day as gridlocked roads, along with no trains and no buses meant many workers were unable to access employment.

The Traffex panel welcomed the National Transport Strategy as a good first step in future-proofing Scotland’s roads network. It highlights the need to enhance the resilience of the transport network, to enable new transport projects and policies to deal effectively with the predicted changes in climate and to adapt existing networks to allow for increased rainfall and extreme temperatures.

The panel also discussed some of the technological advances that are set to revolutionise travel patterns in the coming years. One notable development is the emergence of autonomous vehicles (AVs).

AVs need roads without impediments, and therefore need clear and well-maintained road surfaces, as well as road markings that are kept at high standards. At the same time, the ways in which AVs use roads may be different from conventional traffic, and this will have significant effects on the resilience of road surfaces.

Electric vehicles also herald profound changes to our roads, with implications for road pricing and infrastructure.

With only 20 minutes to cover the future of Scotland’s roads, the panel had their work cut out. But they ended, as they began, by stressing the need to understand the travel habits of the future. There was widespread agreement that the travelling public will be open to innovations such as AVs and electric vehicles, but will also expect improvements in connectivity options, including cycling and public transport.

Our road engineers will have a vital role to play in maintaining the roads network, while being flexible and open to new developments to keep Scotland moving.

Idox Transport delivers bespoke, cost-effective solutions to support strategic and localised transport control. Innovative services and solutions enable complete management across all forms of transport, supporting the safe and efficient movement of people and vehicles – whatever the end goal. To find out more, please contact the Transport team at transport@idoxgroup.com