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Beyond the Awards with Wendy Atkinson, Associate Director, Arcadis

Beyond the Awards: Lessons from the Shortlist distils sharp, real-world insight from projects recognised in the CIHT Awards 2026. We ask shortlisted entrants four focused questions on legacy, skills, key learning, and future trends to discover what’s working now and what’s coming next. It’s essential reading for sector professionals looking to benchmark their work, apply lessons learnt now and stay ahead of change.

In this edition we speak to Wendy Atkinson, Associate Director, Arcadis on the lessons learnt from the project "Signalling for Roadworks (SfR) National Roll-out" shortlisted for the 2026 CIHT Heath and Safety in the Workplace Award.

Overview of shortlisted project: Recognising that setting out temporary traffic management exposes roadworkers to risk, Signalling for Roadworks (SfR) replaces temporary road works signs with existing electronic variable signs and signals (VSS). 

Communicating advanced warnings of lane closures on VSS removes the need to enter live carriageways. SfR also enables lane specific queue detection through the works, providing significant safety benefits. 

Rolling SfR out nationally across the strategic road network, reduced exposure to live carriageway working by 5,920 hours (equivalent to 246 days) in 2025 and reduces slips, trips and falls.

   

How did you ensure that the project has long term use and a positive legacy?

(WA) Signalling for Roadworks is intended to improve safety for road workers, so ensuring the buy-in of the road worker community was critical to its long-term use. Engaging regularly with representatives from the industry, during the design phase enabled us to understand the perspective of those we were trying to help. Then, engaging subject matter experts such as National Highways Chapter 8 Team and DfT ensured that project delivery remained compliant with both legislation and best practice.

   

What kind of skills are critical now for projects such as yours to succeed and why?

(WA) Detailed knowledge of how technology deployed on the network impacts safety and operations, together with an excellent understanding of driver behaviour is critical to success. To improve safety, one needs to identify the behaviours we want to encourage on the network, and be able to explain complex issues to a non-technical audience, for example, how technology will influence better driver behaviours, backed by evidential data. Communication skills and operational knowledge and experience help to engage effectively with stakeholders while an in-depth understanding of risk is necessary to ensure ongoing safety.

   

What did you learn that you will take into the next project?

(WA) The key learning from SfR that we will take into future projects is that obtaining evidential data is key to securing the buy-in of stakeholders and budget holders. Demonstrating a baseline from which improvements may be made needs to be robust and evaluation methodologies need to be repeatable and scalable. This together with a variety of methods to present and explain the data, to a mixed audience, can save time and effort in decision making and implementation.

     

What trends should the sector be paying attention to and why?

(WA) SfR uses roadside signals to help the road user navigate the network safely. As navigation intelligence moves inside the vehicle, governance around vehicular movement becomes more important. If roadside signals have taught us anything, it is that safety at scale depends on consistent, authoritative instruction. That principle does not change simply because the interface has moved from gantry to dashboard.

   

Arcadis in their own words

We bring together the world’s brightest architects, analysts, designers, engineers, project planners, and sustainability experts to solve the world’s most complex infrastructure and environmental challenges. 

  

Next steps

If you work in highways and transportation, keep an eye out for Beyond the Awards: Lessons from the Shortlist overview (Coming soon) — your single go-to source for sharp, practical insight drawn from standout projects and the people behind them. By bringing together key takeaways from award entries and candid interviews with leading contributors, this feature turns real-world experience into real-world learning that you can apply today to your projects while helping you stay prepared for what’s coming next.

2026 CIHT Award Winners

The results for the 2026 CIHT Awards will be announced at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, London on 17 June 2026.  To find out more about the Awards Ceremony visit here.

  

CIHT Statement

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the CIHT or its members. Neither the CIHT nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein

  

Tags CIHT National Awards Interview National International
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