Ministerial Opening Speech.

Transport Scotland net zero overview

Panel debate/discussion fielding Q&A from audience.

Protecting our road workers on a live network.

This presentation examines best practice and lessons learned at all levels. It will outline the benefits of: strategic delivery versus a piecemeal approach; early and diverse engagement rather than neglecting community concerns; and successful data-based communication to prevent panic-driven scheme withdrawal.  

How CDM and Road Safety Relate Implications of unsafe CDM working practices and resulting injuries/Safety issues Impact of Permanent Design and Temporary Works on road Safety DMRB vs RSA – Is Compliant design necessarily a safe design? Standards and Tools designers can call upon: GG119 Road Safety Audit, GG104 Strategic Risk Assessments, Road Safety Review input to Designers Risk Assessments Summary of GG119 and GG104 Communicating Safety

Road Safety Framework.

A safety-led and long-community-campaigned-for signalisation scheme with active travel works.

The Smart Canal.

NetZero, Climate change adaptation for the trunk road network.

Electric Vehicle Charging Points.

Siemens new Plus + system and benefits to net zero.

The Committee on Climate Change’s 6th carbon budget calls for construction to be largely decarbonised by 2040. Road maintenance has a big contribution to this – as a part of Government, as a major buyer of asphalt, steel, concrete and cement, and as part of an anchor organisation in Scotland. In this talk David Symons will share the practical steps which highways can take to lead the decarbonisation of road maintenance and construction. This talk will draw on National Highways’ net zero strategy which David Symons and WSP led. It will draw on the practical innovations which WSP are developing as part of the firm’s unique commitment to halve the carbon footprint of their designs and advice by 2030. These includes new materials, modular highways components and innovative reuse of existing buildings products. It will draw on the Scottish Government’s Investment Hierarchy. The talk will be lively and engaging and also will consider both what these technologies are and also how procuring authorities can drive net zero into their specifications and buying decisions.

Scottish Borders Council converted all existing 30mph speed limits to 20mph and is working with Transport Scotland, Police Scotland, Edinburgh Napier University and SUSTRANS as well as residents to determine which streets if any should remain at 20mph and which streets if any should revert back to 20mph.  Been an interesting project involving the analysis of more than 3million vehicle movements across the network.

Designing infrastructure & places that prioritise the needs of older and younger people.

During the optioneering stage of a project, design is often rapidly evolving and critical decisions have to be made using limited information such as; precedent site photos, hand sketches and simple cross sections. Some decisions, whilst technically validated, could be sub-optimal from an end user’s perspective.  This is particularly common when designing active travel measures in an urban environment, where the site is highly constrained and the ‘look and feel’ of the design is as important as the technical functionalities.  Visual impact is also one of the indicators used in Transport Scotland’s latest Cycling by Design guidance when assessing different active travel measures and arrangements.

Mott MacDonald has recently developed a parametric visualisation tool, IDEA for Streets, that aims to fill this gap by enabling visualisations to be quickly generated using a suite of street design parameters.  This allows key design principles such as; road space allocation, street furniture placement, surface finishes and the relationship between spatial design and movement activities to be visually brainstormed and reviewed live during a meeting.

In this presentation, we will focus on some of the typical challenges faced during the design process, and how parametric visualisations created using a game engine can help inform key design decision making on projects and future digital twin compatibility.

Addressing/removing the restrictions in any accessibility for anyone along the trunk road network.