While disasters cannot be fully prevented, measures can be put in place to ensure that their impact is limited on road networks and highways. Much of the work starts with effective asset management.

The first step to optimal asset management for those working on or around highways and transport networks would be to get the basics right first, says Emily See, Highway Market Director at Amey Consulting and CIHT Technical Champion.

“Once you’ve got a foundation, you can build on that and identify the gaps. We are very good at severe weather or winter events, but the challenge is planning for them. Right now, we’re getting better at dealing with drainage and flooding because we know that climate change will bring more issues there.

“I focus a lot on asset management, and I suppose the point of that is that [it] can enable disaster management because to react to a disaster you need to know about your assets,” adds See. “Asset management gives you a clear visibility of what you own, where it is, what condition it is in and how it behaves in stressful situations.”

Looking to the future

Having a handle on the current status is one thing, but See says looking into the future is also vital.

“The emergency response is enabled by everything you deliver for asset management. So, if you don't have a good asset management plan, disaster management would then become really hard, because you wouldn't have the systems in place, the data and the governance that then shape your day-to-day activities,” she explains.

Essentially, the message is to incorporate disaster management into asset management, rather than dealing with it as a separate project and it risking getting put to one side because you think a disaster might never happen.

Transport professionals can also learn from their international partners, believes See: “We often say things like ‘If it snows in Canada, they deal with it really well, whereas if it snows here, it's like we've never seen snow before’.

“But we need to start learning the lessons from others. Someone here could probably pick up disaster management plan from somewhere else in the world and, with minor tweaking, it would be relevant for the UK, too. A lot of people seem to start from scratch, which can be a waste of everyone's time.”

While technology can play a role in helping asset management, See says the core pillars of asset management don't dramatically change. “It’s all about policy and strategy, leadership and commitment and life cycle planning. But there are obviously some elements such as climate, carbon and digital, which we do have to update.

“When we're doing predictive modelling, we have more data behind us to help predict the future climate because there have been more weather events. From a digital perspective, the tools and the systems are ever-changing and making things easier.” 

See believes a current challenge for those within the industry is keeping up with digital technology: “I think we're a bit behind other industries because we’ve got more boots on the ground when it comes to disaster management, which is something highways is really good at.

“But what we’re not as good at doing is then taking the data and information and using it for our learning lessons for the next disaster. That is definitely something to work on.”

Emily See will be joined by John Lamb from PIARC, CIHT Climate Change Associate Andrew Crudgington, and Peter Ingram, Kier, to talk on this subject at CIHT’s Annual Conference next Wednesday (18 March). Book your tickets now.

Image: snow in Scotland on the M74. Credit: Shutterstock.