Transport User Voice – December 2016 – Focus on people when delays happen, say road users

29 November 2016

“Consider the needs of people in vehicles, not just what the engineers need, when you get the orange cones out.”

That is the message from road users across England in our new report on people’s experiences of planned roadworks and unplanned disruption.

Transport Minister Andrew Jones MP launched the report, Incidents and roadworks: a road user perspective, at the Highways UK conference in Birmingham.

The needs of road users as they travel through roadworks on England’s strategic road network is clear: more involvement in the planning of roadworks; shorter sections of roadworks or delivering them in phases; visible working 24/7 and setting speed limits no lower than required to maintain safety.

Actively involving the freight industry in roadworks planning and diversion routes is an important recommendation from the research. It shows their need to keep shelves stocked and goods delivered on time.

We found road users are sympathetic to those involved in incidents. However they want to see more action taken to free users stuck in stationary traffic, or to prevent them from joining the back of a queue in the first place.

We are calling for more helpful roadside signage, which would give road users better information about delays, how long the likely delay will be and what they should do instead. The same applies to roadworks, where road users want to know what is happening, how they will be affected and how they will benefit.

We will be asking Highways England to respond to our recommendations. We will keep track of progress and report back on progress as it happens.

To read the report click here or to see highlights, pictures, and tweets of all the activity at Highways UK take a look at our new ‘Moment’ on Twitter.

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