Leadent featured in Transport Journal - 01.05.2007
An article on Leadent's support for Utility companies in the face of the Traffic Management Act appeared in Transport Journal, May 2007. An excerpt is given below:
The Traffic Management Act Promises Big Shake Up
"Tracey Devlin is Head of the Public Sector Division at Leadent, which has recently launched a toolkit designed to help utility companies come to terms with the new Traffic Management Act.
The spring of 2007 will see perhaps the biggest shake-up the management of our road network has ever seen. The Traffic Management Act, which passed through the two Houses back in 2004, will give local authorities (LAs) the responsibility to prevent traffic congestion and disturbance caused by road works. Crucially with these new responsibilities come new powers which will have a significant impact on the road traffic system nationwide.
We all appreciate that congestion is a problem; indeed, regardless of increasingly punitive measures, such as congestion charging, rising fuel prices and increased road tax, our road use doubled in the final quarter of the 20th Century and looks set to further increase through the 21st. Furthermore, despite encouragement to use public transport or alternative freight options the fact remains that for many of us road travel is essential. But even those whose livelihood does not entirely depend on their ability to get from A to B are unwilling to give up their car.
In this respect, the Traffic Management Act shows a change of tack, with the Government looking to the other player in the congestion problem; utilities. The fact that each year four million holes are dug in Britain’s one million miles of road gives some indication of the magnitude of the problem. Of course, no one is denying that utilities need to be able to service and repair their networks – I for one am quite attached to my running water – however, it is clear that this could be achieved more efficiently, allowing us to make the most of our existing road network.
This is the Act’s aim and it adds to legislation included within the 1991 New Roads and Street Works Act and amends the 1992 Street Works Regulations. Although parts of the Act are already in place, such as higher fines for road works’ offences, the major changes affecting utilities will start coming into play next year.
The main departure from the current system is that the Highways’ Authorities can now penalise non-compliance without resorting to court action. Now, like a corporate parking warden, they may simply hand out fixed penalty notices. This change has the potential to hit non-compliant utilities hard.
Naively, some may think that, at £120 a go, these penalties are too light to make an impact. However, there are a myriad of different offences they can be issued for, including failing to give advance notice of works to starting work before the agreed date. By our calculations, this could quickly tot up to £1m for every percent of non-compliance of a proposed notice period.
This is no pie in the sky figure, in fact I think it’s rather conservative when you consider that some utilities admit that, under current measures, they regularly operate at levels as high as 25 percent non-compliance.
Of course, just the threat of this new regime is not enough to shape utilities up and get them flying right. As much as we would sometimes like to think – mostly when stuck in traffic jams of epic proportions – that this non-compliance is down to sheer laziness there is, obviously, much more to it than that.
We are currently working with Utility companies to help them prepare for the huge sea-change they face – for some organisations as many as 1,200 employees will have to be retrained.
In addiction counsellor-speak, our first role is to help them identify that they have a problem – in management consultant-speak we have developed a TMA Implementation Toolkit which is a diagnostic tool designed to help them assess the impact of the Act and how they can use it to their advantage. Ideally the end result, with rigorous forward planning, should be more efficient utilities coupled with an ease in road congestions. Not even a London black cab driver could complain about that."