Few are the operators or drivers who have not silently (or otherwise) cursed roadworks. No argument can be made that those schemes are not a necessary evil; road repairs are called for periodically and infrastructure beneath the surface requires attention on the same basis.
Where patience has long since lapsed is with the long-lasting, highly disruptive works that sprout with no consideration or mitigation for the impact they have on those going about their business, whether that be coach and bus operators, drivers and passengers, freight movements, or the public in private cars.
Use of ‘emergency’ powers for some schemes is out of hand, as noted by a trade body. Meanwhile, the Transport Committee recently called for overhaul of how roadworks and lane closures are handled. The government shamefully rejected much of what was sought.
On a more granular level, it can be questioned whether enough attention is paid to how schemes are planned, their duration, and any cushioning measures put in place, particularly for bus services. The latter can be done; at least one area has seen buses escorted through a closure to avoid a long diversion.
A few miles away from that past instance of good practice, recent weeks have shown how badly things can go wrong when roadworks are poorly managed. Closure in one direction of a major A-road was due to be in place for six weeks. Over its first few days, a bus journey of around a mile was left taking up to 80 minutes. A utility company was the culprit.
‘Was’ is the word here because the closure was quickly halted by the highway authority after it was found that permit conditions were being ignored. Exactly why has not been disclosed, but for action to be taken and holes to be filled in within two-and-a-half days of the closure starting suggests something serious. Full marks to the highway authority.
Nevertheless, timetables and drivers’ schedules were decimated for three days, and what of the longer-term impact on revenue? Several home-to-college coach services use the section of road in question. Significant overtime costs will also have fallen on operators.
Even where permits are used correctly, an answer to roadworks-related difficulties of this scale – where traffic speeds are reduced to a fraction of what an able-bodied adult can achieve on foot – is not easy to find. Gas main and water pipe renewals need to be done, and they are seldom small jobs; if they are not completed, then what?
But the situation where coach and bus services, and trips via other modes, are devastated for potentially weeks on end by large projects in this fashion cannot continue. That the utility company involved or its contractors were flouting the permit’s conditions in the example above is a severely aggravating factor. Will it have been the first time for that behaviour?
Any kind of disruption has the scope to fatally impact weaken bus services. One possible upshot is that public subsidy following loss of commerciality is required to effectively prop up damage done by badly planned roadworks. It might be far-fetched, but it could happen.
Productivity is a buzzword presently as tax rises look likely in November. Examining the wider costs of millions of hours wasted in poorly managed, lackadaisically undertaken roadworks each year would be no bad place to start in tackling that.
