Lane rental costs of £800/day have been saved by using road plates to cover up an excavation and open the road to traffic when works were not under way.

The Ringway/Jacobs job in north London involved construction of a new chamber in the middle of the carriageway at the junction of the A5023 and A503 and a lane rental charge would have applied for work outside the restricted working window of 10am to 3pm.

Use of the road plates was part of a joint Department for Transport (DfT), TRL and Transport for London (TfL) project looking at ways of reducing road and street works duration which was unveiled at a CIHT meeting last week.

TFL’s three pioneer lane rental schemes which went live in June have provided impetus for contractors to consider new ways of operating to reduce traffic disruption “which costs the capital between £750M and £1Bn a year,” according to TfL’s head of safety, risk and design services John Newham. 

The work is in line with Government’s desire to reduce road congestion to benefit the economy. “There are 1.2M streetworks in England every year,” DfT head of streetworks Barbara King said. “With the cost to the economy of road congestion put at £4.2Bn a year we are looking at ways of reducing that cost by encouraging faster streetworks and use of new techniques.”

TRL principal asset manager for infrastructure Richard Jordan said: “I think this research programme will stimulate new solutions from manufacturers particularly with the impetus of lane rental.”

More information at www.trl.co.uk/reducingcongestionfromhighwayworks

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