A road to better infrastructure
Malcolm Dare, Executive Director, Commercial & Procurement, National Highways, talks to Darrell Smart
Malcolm Dare discusses the state of geospatial engineering and key issues and opportunities in the highways industry
THE highways industry relies heavily on the expertise and innovation from geospatial engineers. In an industry that will never compromise on safety or the customer, professional development, standards and competence are paramount.
Receiving its funding in five year blocks – known as road periods – from the government, National Highways must ensure that it delivers on its vast programme of commitments, including the current A428, for the travelling public. In order to meet these challenges, National Highways engages with advanced Tier 1 partners to embrace the latest advancements in new technology.
Civil Engineering Surveyor spoke to Malcolm Dare at National Highways to get his opinion on how we can improve skills and competence in geospatial engineering, the key issues and opportunities in the highways industry and what the surveying future looks like...
What’s the current state of the geospatial and commercial procurement profession within National Highways?
As a client organisation, we need to understand what geospatial work is being carried out on the ground by the likes of Skanska, Mott MacDonald, AECOM, Jacobs etc. We need to be growing our level of skills and awareness at the same speed as the supply base.
Many Tier 1s have worked very heavily on HS2 and that has helped push the boundaries encouraging further advancements.
There’s a lot more awareness and understanding of it now. For instance, if you go back in time, constructing a bridge over a weekend was quite revolutionary. It’s common practice now to install a new bridge or replace an old bridge over a weekend – even with all the planning that goes on. So I think it’s evolving, and I think it’s evolving significantly. However, like any industry, there’s more we can do.
Technology is evolving at a significant rate outside of our sector – we’re not driving geospatial engineering but many other industries are. The challenge is what can we do as a client to catalyse the pace of change more quickly without developing something that’s unique to the highway sector. Overall, it’s getting there and every now and again, someone pushes the boundaries and moves it forward and then other industries adopt.
Do you find that change is being driven from the contractors themselves in sharing their experiences and their advancements with the likes of National Highways?
The main framework for capital works is the regional development partnership (RDP). We contract with a Tier 1; we don’t contract with the designers. The Tier 1 chooses its designers. One of the current big schemes at the moment is the A428 upgrade where we’ve contracted with Skanska, who has its chosen designer, in this case Mott MacDonald.
They design the scheme which ultimately we have to approve. In the process of doing that we look at the Tier 1 to be a highly competent contractor bringing in the latest studies and latest thinking.
We may nudge and we may encourage that. Many Tier 1s have worked very heavily on HS2 and that has helped push the boundaries encouraging further advancements. At the moment, we’re pushing very heavily on carbon net zero – that was never around when HS2 was being put together.
As a client we will always catalyse a push for improvement. But equally, we expect the Tier 1 to be bringing in ideas and innovation because we contract for a price – and they’ve got to use innovation to help achieve that.
What’s your opinion on the geospatial engineering and commercial management professional development that’s going on within the profession?
I am a great believer in investing in people and professional development. Organisations that don’t invest in professional development in whatever sphere or field, I genuinely think they’re losing a vast amount of opportunity. Within any sector, there’s got to be that continuous professional development. If you boil that down to the basics, the businesses who are going to be successful are the ones with the best people who have the right motivation – using the latest technology – to really help it perform.
Geospatial engineering is no different; it’s an enabler that helps businesses succeed. It’s the desire, regardless of which business it is and where they fit within the supply chain, to invest in professional qualifications that I think is absolutely essential. I suspect during COVID there was a bit of a tail off but we’re now through that and back into normal ways of working and businesses have to invest in their professional development.
A14 Junction 25, Bar Hill © Speedacer.
Isn’t it also around competence and raising standards?
Absolutely, if you’re not doing that development, you’re not going to improve your standards and you’re not going to improve your competence. That’s going to make you less attractive as a professional and as a business. Very few people don’t want to improve. Most have a natural curiosity and they want to learn and grow. If you can help employees grow, learn and develop further, it has a positive impact on morale. If, as a business, you’re not investing in your people to get better, more skilled, more competent, you’re going to lose out against businesses that are. It’s that virtuous circle of investment in your people, which helps to take your business forward.
At National Highways we invested in the Roads Academy to help grow the leadership capability within our supply base down from the large Tier 1s to SMEs. We do that because we know if we don’t get the leadership right, we don’t get performance on the ground; which is what we need to be able to deliver for the travelling public.
From a commercial standpoint doesn’t that make you more attractive over your competitors?
Growing professional capability is essential and every relevant party has to be invested in it.
Definitely. If I’m looking at suppliers, I’m not looking at a supplier that just does the same old thing over and over again – rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat! I’m looking for suppliers to invest in people, invest in technology, invest in thinking, because they’re the ones you can have conversations with around innovation.
If the supplier’s done the same thing, time and time again, you’re not going to get a lot of innovation. We need innovative partners who will help the supply base get better, because they’re the ones that are trying to push, improve, learn and become more successful. Growing professional capability is essential and every relevant party has to be invested in it.
From a client’s perspective, does that instil confidence regarding delivery?
We’ll never compromise on safety and we’ll never compromise on the customer. We care about quality, cost and delivery being on time and on budget. You always hear about examples where that’s not happening particularly well. But if an organisation invests very heavily in its competencies the chances are that organisation will deliver to a high standard. What I’m seeing is that two or three of the major Tier 1s have been making these investments in many different areas and they’re beginning to deliver on time or budget in big complex schemes. That’s a big step forward.
What are the key issues facing the highways industry at this time?
Put simply, we receive our funding from the government in five year blocks. We’re in what’s termed road period two (RP2) at the moment, which is 1 April 2020 until 31 March 2025 (road period three (RP3) is 1 April 2025 until 31 March 2030). The current funding block is £24.5bn in RP2, compared to road period one (RP1), which was £15bn. We’ve got to deliver our commitments in RP2; be that capital or operational.
Nobody at the start of RP2 saw either inflation or COVID coming, so we’ve had two big hits that we’re having to work through to deliver our commitments whilst at the same time negotiating settlement for RP3. As an industry, receiving the funding in five year blocks gives us a high degree of certainty. It also gives us flexibility about how we move programmes around in order to ensure that we deliver our commitments at the end of the five years.
If you take, for example, planning issues with development consent orders (DCOs) in RP1, DCOs were very rarely challenged. In RP2, DCOs have been challenged quite heavily, predominantly around the environmental carbon agenda. That five year flexibility allows us to move programmes to flex where we might have an issue and a delay because people’s right to challenge allows us to accelerate or slow things down.
At a business level, our challenge at the moment is delivering RP2 against the commitments we’ve made whilst negotiating RP3 in order to have that certainty of funding from April 2025 until March 2030. That certainty then translates through the supply base so it can see the investment the government is making inroads. The supply base can then make its own investments in capability, plant, equipment or capital in order to enable us to deliver our schemes in RP3.
There are high profile schemes planned; Lower Thames should be in the ground, A303 Stonehenge tunnels should be in the ground – currently with Skanska, the A428 has just started but that’s a long build programme that goes into RP3. So there are some big, big commitments. On top of the continuous investment in maintaining the existing network, assets and structures, we’re getting into structural renewals due to the age of some of the network. So securing that certainty of funding is really important to us – but it’s absolutely vital to the supply base.
Where have you seen geospatial engineering assist in National Highways and what can we do to improve?
Technology will improve the quality and the productivity of what we do and we’ve got to be willing to use it well and use it sensibly.Be it a new bridge or a replacement, if you went back 10-15 years, would you see it being built offline and then manoeuvred accurately into position against some very, very tight tolerances with the added pressures of timings and road closures? No you wouldn’t. It’s great to see technology and innovation being used in that way. That’s the way it was done on the A14 – it was built off-site, manoeuvred into position and dropped down; without the worry that it’s going to be 2m too long!
That type of capability is really, really powerful. That opens up the possibility of improving the quality and the speed of build because you’re not building everything in-situ. The quality then goes up, the speed goes up and more importantly the costs are under control. That’s the real opportunity that works and is used today.
Connected autonomous plant (CAP) is another area where geospatial engineering is improving delivery for National Highways. That’s the use of thinking and technology where you get the game changers in industry, not so much something that’s just unique to highways, but something that spreads across many different parts of the construction and civil engineering industries.
What does the future look like for geospatial engineering in the highways industry?
Use more of it and learn to use it more effectively. If you had an A14 style build programme in 10 years’ time versus what it was say 10 years ago, you’d hope to see CAP as the norm, working and operating within the constraints that are set. It’s that ongoing use of technology to improve accuracies and speed things up that’s impressive.
Leverage the digital twin so you know where things are. Service strikes are an issue to us, that constant issue where cables from build programmes are being left, not accounted for or utilities aren’t where they should be, is challenging.
Having the use of technology so you know what’s in the ground beneath you and using that key data to give you quality information before you start breaking ground is essential. Lives depend on it. Technology will improve the quality and the productivity of what we do and we’ve got to be willing to use it well and use it sensibly.
If everyone is pushing boundaries and adopting new technology, not just within the highways sector, we all win. It’s an exciting time for the profession.
Malcolm Dare, Executive Director, Commercial & Procurement, National Highways was talking to Darrell Smart