Highways asset management strategy

Foreword

Plymouth’s highway network is used by tens of thousands of people every day, commuting to work, attending business meetings, visiting friends and family, travelling to medical appointments, taking part in social and leisure activities and much more.

It is absolutely crucial to the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of our local communities and the future prosperity of the city as a whole.

Financially, this is a very challenging time for councils but we remain committed to providing a network that is resilient, not just making repairs where needed but investing in preventative work to slow down or halt any decline in its condition.

This strategy sets out how we will manage and maintain all our highway assets, from roads, footways and bridges to streetlights, traffic signals and signs.

It outlines how we plan to meet our statutory obligations, as well as the needs of local residents and other stakeholders, in the most efficient, collaborative and cost-effective way we can.

It also shows how we do this in line with industry best practice and national guidance, including the new Highways Code of Practice, Highways Management Efficiency Programme and Department for Transport Incentive Fund recommendations. 

We hope it will help to explain our responsibilities and our commitment to ensuring Plymouth has a safe and well-maintained highway network.

Councillor Jonathan Drean

Cabinet Member for Transport

Document Control

Revision:

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Importance of Highway Infrastructure to Plymouth

The local highway network is the largest and most visible community asset for which local authorities are responsible. It is used daily by the majority of residents, businesses and those passing through the City and is fundamental to the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of the community. It helps to shape the character and quality of the local areas that it serves and makes an important contribution to wider local authority priorities, including regeneration, social inclusion, community safety, health and wellbeing. With a total replacement cost in excess of £1.5 billion, the importance of its effective and efficient management cannot be understated.

Why Asset Management?

Asset management is a strategic approach that seeks to optimise the value of highway assets over their whole life. Plymouth City Council recognises that by taking an asset management-based approach to its local highway maintenance, investment can be targeted on long term planned activities that prevent expensive short-term repairs. This approach not only maximises value for money, ensuring informed investment decisions can be made, but also manages risk and maintains a highway environment that is safe and secure and accessible for our customers.

Asset Management Policy

Plymouth City Council’s Highway Asset Management Policy is a high-level document which establishes the Council’s commitment to Infrastructure Asset Management and demonstrates how this approach aligns with the Council’s priorities, objectives and the Plymouth Plan.

Asset Management Strategy

This Highways Asset Management Strategy has been drawn up by the Plymouth Highways Service and sets out how the Asset Management Policy will be delivered. It has been developed as part of the overall Highways Infrastructure Asset Management Plan (HIAMP). This Strategy sets out how the Council will best manage the Highway Network, taking into consideration customer needs, local priorities, asset condition and the best use of available resources balanced against risk of service failure and the likely future demand for services. It also ensures that both short and long term needs are appropriately considered, whilst delivering a minimum whole life cost approach to our Highway Assets. It is aligned to the Council’s corporate priorities and policies in the Plymouth Plan.

In support of the Council Plan 2021-2025 and the Plymouth Plan 2014-2034, this Council recognises that an asset management approach to the maintenance of the highways network will aid the achievement of the Councils vision, as set out below:

Council Priorities

Unlocking the city's potential

• A clean and tidy city
• A green, sustainable city that cares about the environment
• Offer a wide range of homes
• A vibrant economy, developing quality jobs and skills
• An exciting cultural and creative place
• Create a varied, efficient, sustainable transport network

Caring for people and communities

• A friendly and welcoming city
• Reduced health inequalities
• People feel safe in Plymouth
• Focus on presentation and early intervention
• Keep children, young people and adults protected
• Improved schools where pupils achieve better outcomes

Plymouth Plan priorities

• Plymouth as a healthy city
• Plymouth as a growing city
• Plymouth as an international city

Asset management objectives

• To provide a safe, efficient, accessible and health-enabling highway network
• To reduce the environmental impact of the highway asset
• To deliver cost effective asset management
• To encourage the adoption of innovation in the highway service

Asset management framework

Plymouth City Council has developed a Highways Infrastructure Asset Management Framework that is based on the recommendation made with the 2013 HMEP Highway Infrastructure Asset Management Guidance and the 2016 Well-Managed Highway Infrastructure: A Code of Practice. This plan summarises all activities and processes that are necessary to develop, document, implement and continually improve our approach to asset management.

Context

This establishes the context for highway infrastructure asset management in Plymouth. The context includes a variety of factors that need to be taken into consideration when determining the Council’s expectations for the highway service. The factors include: corporate strategy, local vision, local transport policies, expectations of stakeholders and legal and financial constraints.

Planning

This sets out the key activities that are undertaken by Plymouth as part of the asset management planning process. The activities include:

• Policy – Plymouth’s published commitment to highway asset management.
• Strategy – Plymouth’s published statement on: how the policy will be implemented, the implementation of an asset management framework, the strategy for each asset group, and the commitment to continuous improvement.
• Performance – The levels of service to be provided by Plymouth’s highway service and how performance will be measured and reported.
• Data – Plymouth’s strategy for data collection and management, without which informed decisions cannot be taken.
• Lifecycle planning – Plymouth’s lifecycle plans for each asset group which when combined with funding levels and desired levels of service enable informed decisions to be taken.
• Works programmes – Plymouth’s rolling programme of works for each asset group.

Enablers

Enablers are a series of supporting activities that support the implementation of the Asset Management Framework. They provide a means of: developing organisational leadership and the adoption of an asset management culture; effectively communicating and collaborating with all stakeholders; developing the competencies and skills of all highways staff, effectively managing risk; delivering a strategy for the use of asset management systems; measuring the performance of the asset management framework; benchmarking progress and collaborating with other highway authorities, and above all, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.

Delivery 

The delivery component of the framework sets out how the highway service will be delivered with our partner, South West Highways.

Strategy for Main Asset Groups

Introduction

Whilst the highway network is divided into key asset groups these should be considered as an integrated set of assets when developing highway infrastructure maintenance policies. Below is a summary of the assets maintained by Plymouth.

Table – Summary of Highway Asset

Highway Asset Hierarchy

The network hierarchy is essential for the management and maintenance of the network. The hierarchy considers current and expected use, resilience, and local economic and social factors such as industry, schools, hospitals and similar.

The carriageway and footway asset hierarchy has been reviewed in line with Well Managed Highway Infrastructure and is used as a tool to help ensure that highway maintenance activities are effectively prioritised.

Table: Carriageway Hierarchy

Table: Footway Hierarchy

Carriageways

Carriageways are the most valuable highway asset in Plymouth, having a Gross Replacement Cost of nearly £1.5 billion and receive the greatest levels of maintenance expenditure. They were the first asset, for which lifecycle plans have been developed, resulting in the creation of several investment scenarios which have modelled current condition, investment levels and desired performance outcomes. This has enabled a greater understanding of where to target investment to achieve the desired levels of service.

Plymouth City Council is responsible for the maintenance of 53km of principal (A) roads, providing transport links within or between large urban areas. The Council is also responsible for 211km of non-principal (B&C) roads connecting towns and villages and feeding traffic between principal and smaller roads. Unclassified, estate and rural roads serving local traffic account for 609km, the largest proportion of the Plymouth network. The condition of the carriageway asset is measured through annual surveys and inspections.

Planned maintenance is delivered by an annual programme. This programme of capital funded schemes of work are identified using an asset management approach. This evidence-based approach to maintenance is endorsed by Council Members and supports the overarching priorities of the authority.

Management of potholes and other carriageway safety issues arising across the network is delivered using a combination of capital and revenue funding. By employing an asset management-based approach and improving the co-ordination of road maintenance and improvement activity, Plymouth will continue to increase the value achieved in road maintenance, improve network resilience and reduce the burden on revenue budgets through the delivery of effective programmes of preventative work.

Current Challenges: To maintain the resilient network at its current condition by preventing the percentage of “red” condition assets from increasing whilst also managing the unclassified network to avoid its further deterioration with growing demands on the existing budgets.

Desired Outcome: To sustain the overall condition of the carriageway network at an acceptable level whilst maximising value for money through asset management and exploring innovative technologies and alternative surface types.

Footways and Cycleways

Footways and cycleways are critical assets supporting access and mobility for people in Plymouth. Securing continuous improvement in the safety and serviceability of footways and cycleways is necessary to encourage alternatives to the car, particularly for journeys in urban areas. Well maintained footways aid social inclusion, particularly improving accessibility for vulnerable people and support the Active Travel agenda.

Plymouth City Council is responsible for the maintenance of 31km of primary footways in high footfall areas, for example town centres, and 872km of footways providing access in residential and remote areas. The Council also maintains a number of cycleways as part of the highway network, mostly those which form part of, or are adjacent to, either the carriageway or footway networks. The footway and cycleway assets have a Gross Replacement Cost of nearly £182 million.

Footway and cycleway condition is assessed through regular condition surveys and inspections. Planned maintenance has historically been determined on a worst first basis and concentrated in urban areas with high footfall. However, in recent years this has transitioned to a more targeted asset management approach. The shortfall in maintenance budget or expenditure has resulted in overall long-term deterioration of the footway and cycleway network, a problem experienced by highway authorities nationally.

Following unprecedented levels of walking and cycling across the UK during the 2020 pandemic, the Department for Transport is keen to encourage more people to choose alternatives to private vehicles. This includes improved public transport and active travel options, making healthier habits easier and helping make sure the road, bus and rail networks are ready to respond to future increases in demand. This also aligns with the Council’s environmental agenda to address the current climate emergency.

Current Challenges: To maintain the resilient footway asset at its current condition and to efficiently target works around established priorities whilst trying to co-ordinate our maintenance programmes with significant works being undertaken by third parties on the network. For the financial years 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 a major contractor has been and is working throughout the City on upgrading and renewing the LFFN network, mainly in footways. This has resulted in the Capital Footway program being largely postponed for both of these years with budgets being redirected into other works. This is resulting in further deterioration of the asset and predominantly only reactive maintenance being carried out until the scheme is completed enough to enable Planned Maintenance works to continue. This decision was taken to avoid areas being renewed as part of Planned Maintenance and then re-opened as part of the LFFN works.

Desired Outcome: Plymouth City Council aims to support the Plymouth Plan to encourage active travel and maintain a safe, efficient, accessible and health-enabling network of footways and cycleways.

Drainage

The highway drainage asset is critical to ensuring the controlled removal of water from the carriageway to allow customers to use it safely. The impact that failure of the drainage asset can have on other highway infrastructure is significant, particularly to the carriageway.

The current inventory of highway drainage assets across Plymouth includes approximately 42,000 gullies and 81 culverts. As part of an invest-to-save initiative, an inspection-led regime is being adopted in conjunction with the use of SmartWater, a risk-based prioritisation model, to focus gully cleansing activity on those gullies that need cleansing while utilising an Internet of Things (IoT) based approach. The prediction model will be verified through both re-inspection and real-time performance measurement through use of strategically placed sensors in gullies.

Outside of routine maintenance, the current approach to repairs and improvements is predominantly reactive, focussed on analysing and addressing known flooding hotspots to reduce those areas presenting the highest risk of flooding. To proactively maintain the entire drainage asset into the future, we will continue to build a complete inventory and good understanding of condition including the associated risks that come with failure. This will enable us to undertake programmes of preventative maintenance whilst monitoring and reviewing performance.

Drainage is complex to maintain as it can be influenced by many other assets, including those not maintained as part of the highway network. As such, the establishment of a cross-discipline Water Management Group, with input from several areas of the Council, will enable effective management of drainage and flooding.

A key factor in the ongoing maintenance of the drainage asset is building upon the understanding of where the Council’s assets interface with those owned and maintained by utility companies. A constructive dialogue with utility companies enables an effective resolution to be established where issues are seen to originate on assets not owned or maintained by the Council. 

Improving our knowledge of drainage infrastructure across the city enables us to demonstrate evidence-based decisions on drainage maintenance and support our ability to secure future funding investment, while demonstrating savings in revenue expenditure through efficient and effective maintenance.

Current Challenges: The city’s drainage assets are identified on the majority of the network. However, our records need to be updated for some areas such as service lanes so cyclical cleaning can be further targeted where required. The growing challenge of climate change will continue to put additional strain on the capacity of the drainage asset as weather events may become more frequent and severe. We aim to improve the drainage asset and to target known areas which are prone to flooding with innovative solutions and efficient practices whilst liaising with the local Utility companies to address any issues with their supporting assets. The program of planned drainage schemes is targeted around known hotspots and in particular those where we believe works will help to improve and reduce the likelihood or impact of further flooding.

Desired Outcome: To continue with a regime of targeted cyclical cleansing to ensure an efficient programme is in place and providing value. This will be supported by addressing and reducing the risk posed by identified hotspots so as to reduce the risk of flooding events.  

Structures

Plymouth City Council actively manages its structural assets in accordance with principles set out in the UK Roads Liaison Group publication ‘The Management of Highway Structures, A Code of Practice’. There are approximately 97 bridges and culverts, 25 footbridges, 48 subways, 4 tunnels and 1 viaduct being maintained, with a Gross Replacement Cost estimated to be £458 million. Routine maintenance of structures is based on a prioritised system of required work with the aim of minimising the risk to public safety and future maintenance costs.

The condition of the structures is monitored with four different types of inspections: general inspection, principal inspection, special inspection and post-tension special inspection which are all undertaken in line with guidance BD63-Inspection of Highway Structures.

All structures are maintained in a condition ‘fit for purpose and safe for use’. This is undertaken in line with a risk-based methodology, prioritising identified works on safety critical elements as well as primary and secondary structural elements of the asset.

Current Challenges: Data surrounding structures is a challenge for Plymouth City Council for both condition and inventory. There are currently 21 structures for which ownership is not established.

Desired Outcome: To improve the understanding of structures around the city and to fully migrate the data onto our structures management system and to close the gaps in any data missing.

Street Lighting

Street lighting is an important highway asset, contributing to public amenity, safety and the night-time economy. With a Gross Replacement Cost of £34 million, the lighting asset consists of approximately:

• 31,066 Street Lights (column and wall mounted);
• 5,360 other inventory items (i.e. illuminated and reflective bollards, internally and externally illuminated signs, school flasher etc);

The overall condition of the street lighting asset is monitored in accordance with ‘Institute of Lighting Professionals Technical Report 22’. Plymouth City Council operates a 3 yearly general maintenance and visual inspection and 6 yearly general maintenance cycle, with all columns in the city being visually inspected for structural and electrical condition at each visit. This maintenance cycle has an overall aim of minimising non-routine visits and improves the efficient operation of the asset.

Current Challenges: 17,500 lighting units are over 25 years of age and are outside their designed lift expectance

Desired Outcome: There has been a major investment by the council to carry out a 3 year replacement programme, this is to both replace the columns affected and re-engineer the lighting arrangement where possible, to reduce street clutter and make available efficiencies.

Traffic Signals

Traffic signal-controlled junctions and pedestrian crossings form an important highway asset, contributing to the safe and efficient use of the road network and promoting economic growth within the city. With a gross replacement cost of £20 million, its efficient operation and maintenance allows those using the road network to move around the city with the minimum of delay and disruption. Efficient maintenance regimes also ensure that the traffic signal installations are maintained in a safe structural and electrical condition.

There are currently 119 signal-controlled junctions, 60 pedestrian signal crossings, 105 other inventory items (i.e. car park signs, variable message signs, traffic management CCTV cameras etc).

Congestion reduction is a key corporate target in line with the goal of Keeping Plymouth Moving for which traffic signals play a vital role. Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are set and monitored to ensure that our contractor attends and rectifies faults within specified contract time periods.

Current Challenges: There are 10 key junctions that have not been MOVA enabled, this potentially results in more congestion at these locations

Desired Outcome: A recent ‘Transforming City’ funding allocation by the DfT has allowed for the updating of these locations with full MOVA and V2X capabilities

Street Furniture

A well designed and managed highway environment generates benefits for residents, businesses and visitors to the city. Road markings, signs and street furniture have a significant presence within this environment and appropriate design and maintenance of these assets is required to offer a safe and attractive public realm to road users.

Plymouth City Council is responsible for a number of different street furniture assets however there is limited knowledge of reliable inventory and condition data. There is an ambition to capture safety critical street furniture and in line with the code of practice, take opportunities to simplify signs and other street furniture and to remove redundant items, this is considered when planning highway infrastructure maintenance activities.

Current Challenges: Most street furniture, such as unlit signs and bollards are managed on a reactive basis with safety being the primary concern. The key challenge is to ensure the provision and maintenance of safety-critical assets in order to support a safe highway environment.

Desired Outcome: To build up a more complete asset register of street furniture, which may allow us to better target funds to problem areas or to remove excessive street furniture where it is no longer required.

Data management and information systems

Plymouth City Council understands that in order to drive continuous improvement and inform effective asset management-based decision making, having the right data management systems in place is vital. The Authority believes that the collection, management and use of data needs to be based on a process, which identifies:

• Ownership
• Data requirements
• Responsibilities
• Costs to store, manage and maintain data

Asset data comprises information on what physical highway infrastructure assets the Council is responsible for, where they are and how they perform. Effective asset management planning and decision-making relies on this data being available, appropriate, reliable, up to date and accurate.

This data has been collected through condition surveys and comprehensive inspections regimes for highway assets and is stored within Plymouth’s Highway Information Management systems. These systems support decision making through managing information and data to support asset management as well as to record and monitor its implementation.

The data management systems utilised to support highways asset management enable data-led modelling of investment scenarios and accurate feedback of both statutory and good practice data returns such as the Whole Government Accounts (WGA) asset valuation.

A data management strategy has been developed that fully supports the asset management strategy and performance framework. 

Climate Emergency

The Climate Change Act 2008 places obligations on the Council and others to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare to adapt to longer term climate change. On the 18^th March 2019, City of Plymouths Elected members voted unanimously to declare a climate emergency and in doing so, committed to meeting the most significant challenge facing our city and our planet.

As part of declaring a climate emergency the Council have produced a Corporate Carbon Reduction Plan 2021 to support the goal to become net zero by 2030. Plymouth Highways are looking to support this plan through the reduction of emissions by changing illuminated bollards and sign lights to LED and to increase to over 50% the number of road junctions with LED traffic lights. This follows a successful programme of LED streetlight conversion.

The highway network can and should look to mitigate the production of the gasses which are key contributors to climate change in other areas. An asset management approach that maximises early planned maintenance interventions to avoid costly reactive works will reduce disruption and congestion on the road networks cutting journey times, reducing fuel use and the carbon footprint of travel. By looking to carefully adopt new and emerging practices it will also be possible to move to maintenance options with an overall lower carbon cost with a carefully managed impact on the overall lifecycle of the effected assets.

Preparing For The Future

Sustainability with regards to asset management links highways to the wider environment and sustainability principles of the Council. The long-term approach driven by asset management considers the actions required to mitigate both direct and indirect impacts of highway maintenance on the environment and our local community. These include:

• Active Travel (walking and cycling)
• Biodiversity
• Carbon outputs
• Effects of Extreme Weather
• Environmental Impact
• Air Quaility

By considering the wider objectives of highway maintenance there may be an impact on the level of investment required however the Council is committed to understanding all the options available so they can make the best decision for our local area. In order to do this in the most efficient way the Council will explore the use of new materials, treatments and techniques for highway maintenance that meet over overarching objectives of making Plymouth a healthy, growing, international city.

Innovation

The Well-Managed Highway Infrastructure Code of Practice suggests that local authorities should be considering the adoption of new and emerging technologies as part of their highway service. Given the ever-changing technological landscape it is important that consideration should be given to new ideas, methods of working and innovation to drive greater efficiency.

Plymouth City Council is committed to driving innovation through the highway service and their membership to LCRIG will support their aim of making innovation a key aspect of its service delivery.  Any new innovations that the Council pilot will be monitored, tested and implemented where possible to help enable service enhancements and cost reduction.

The Council will also look to work with other local authorities to share innovative practices through groups such as LCRIG, ADEPT and the South West Highways Alliance. Risk Management

The Council’s Risk Management Strategy defines the approach to managing risk across the Authority and has been adopted in developing the HIAMP. The essence of the strategy is to define and record significant risks within Risk Registers which detail the mitigating actions needed to minimise the risk exposure those hazards present to a level which is deemed acceptable to the Authority.

The purpose of a risk-based approach for highways is to get a consistent application of our decision-making process which ensures:

• Efficient use of available resources
• Value for money
• Current risks are understood and mitigated if required
• Future risks and opportunities are considered

This approach is supported through the Well-managed Highway Infrastructure: A Code of Practice. 

Best Practice and Performance Monitoring

Plymouth City Council is committed to the development of good practice and continuous improvement, having already played a leading role in the development of the regional agenda on highway asset management. Examples of memberships and actions that demonstrate the Council’s commitment include membership of:

• The South West Highways Alliance;
• The Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT)
• Local Council Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG)
• Institute of Asset Management (IAM),
• Ringway Client Group - Well Managed Highway Infrastructure
• CIPFA HAMP Network; and
• Attendance at a variety of local and regional events.

Performance Monitoring

With this strategy an implementation plan has been created to enable to continual review of progress against this plan in addition to undertaking formal annual reviews. The following Asset management objectives have been developed:

• To provide a safe, efficient, accessible and health-enabling highway network
• To reduce the environmental impact of the highway asset
• To deliver cost effective asset management
• To encourage the adoption of innovation in the highway service

We will monitor performance against these objectives to enable us to identify where we are making progress and where we may need to make changes to ensure we continue to manage the asset in the most efficient manner, and to ensure that we are able to continuously improve.

Strategy Review

This strategy and the Asset Management Policy will be reviewed annually, updated and re-published as appropriate. This process will be managed and implemented by Plymouth City Council officers.

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