How is the current approach to decarbonising UK roads taking into account the challenges of today and the future?
Ensuring road networks are resilient to the impact of climate change is undoubtedly one of the most complex challenges facing civil engineers in the highways sector. And this challenge is heightened by the pressure to reduce the carbon footprint of maintenance and new build projects.
The fundamental understanding and language around carbon is a minefield with major disparities in the way clients, contractors and consultants measure carbon emissions and carbon impact.
Transport for the North major roads director Peter Molyneux believes it is important to move to a more standardised approach to carbon measurement across the industry.
“It is also very important for the public because we are not doing this for ourselves. We are doing this to make a better transport system for freight businesses and people getting around,” he says.
“At the moment, there are lots of phrases that people think they understand but they are not quite sure. If we try and simplify a very complex issue, then not only will the industry be better off but [there is the added benefit of] politicians and the public actually buying in to what we are trying to achieve.”
Transport Scotland director of low carbon economy Stuart Grieg agrees that a common approach would help to encourage confidence that road network operators and transport authorities understand carbon and are accurately measuring and monitoring it.
“You need to have confidence that a pound equals a pound. The problem is that the science keeps changing and improving, so we understand a new thing about this impact of the carbon conundrum. That is difficult to communicate,” he says.
Highways England head of innovation Annette Pass agrees that simplifying and communicating carbon measurements is hugely important for the roads sector, but she says that this must be underpinned by a real science-based approach.
“The carbon doesn’t care what our sums say or what our nice targets are. How do we make sure that the way we are [measuring carbon] reflects reality?” she asks.
Pass believes that the lack of a standardised approach should not be a barrier to the industry’s progress on carbon reduction.
“There are some things that are clearly going to move us in the right direction. The lack of a standardised, agreed measurement method should not stop us from doing that,” she says.
Positive progress
To move the roads network in the right direction, Highways England is currently developing its digital roads vision and plans.
One of the core digital roads themes is digital design and construction. This will support Highways England’s work to fully digitise its standards and specifications and develop digital, automated design, for example through its Rapid Engineering Model.
“Digital tools like this will enable us to relatively easily include carbon calculations, which not only means these can be done more efficiently, but that we are able to compare different design options and their associated carbon footprint in a way that would not be feasible if we had to do the same process manually,” explains Pass.
“And, although this is something we have not tested out yet, it is also possible to use design optimisation software to examine different design options for structures, for example, that optimise for efficient use of materials while meeting the same durability criteria.”
Transport for the North is similarly focused on exploring ways in which innovation can help in the mission to decarbonise road networks. The organisation has undertaken a project in collaboration with the DecarboN8 innovation network which aimed to look at how a transport project can accelerate innovation and consider whole life carbon within its strategic development corridors, while also looking at how to include the consideration of carbon within its strategic decision-making.
“Crucially, we understand that the earlier in the design process that we consider carbon, the bigger the reductions we can achieve,” says Molyneux.
“We also need to realise that many schemes may never ‘pay-back’ their whole carbon so it is important we understand this and are able to consider that negative carbon cost against any social and economic benefits.”
Sharing best practice
Molyneux also emphasises the importance of collaboration between transport agencies and network operators. “When we were developing our strategy, we went up to see Transport Scotland to make sure we were linked up,” he says.
“We also have regular meetings with Highways England. We are using their models and sharing that modelling data as we go forward.”
But Molyneux insists more needs to be done for the industry to come together and collectively tackle the net zero challenge. “Let’s crack on and do this thing,” he says.
“In the last 15 months, the medical profession came together, developed the [coronavirus] vaccine and vaccinated millions of people – and we have stood still.
“It is probably because we are quite a fractured profession and there are so many players.
“How can we make a difference in 15 months, rather than 10, 15 or 20 years? I think that is the challenge for the industry.”
Digital Divide
Using new technologies to help facilitate a risk-based approach to roads maintenance is the raison d’être for software provider KaarbonTech Asset Management. The firm supports the efforts of highway maintenance teams in local authorities and tier 1 contractors to better manage road infrastructure, including culverts, gullies and sewers.
KaarbonTech managing director Mark Entwistle says there is a disparity between local authorities which are willing to try new technologies and drive innovation and those which are not.
“Those who are information rich tend to be financially rich, and those that are information poor are usually financially poor,” he says.
KaarbonTech combines geographic data with usage, history, condition and defect data to model road network requirements. The system allows asset owners to drive efficiency across maintenance programmes by using a risk-based approach.
Entwistle says that 88% of the firm’s clients have used data gathered through the KaarbonTech system to secure extra funding for their networks.
“If that 88% are getting extra money, what about the other people that are not using the platform and are still relying on paper?” he adds.
“The Department for Transport has taken an asset-based and knowledge-based approach [with the publication of its well managed highway infrastructure guidance] which is correct, but in doing so it has created a bigger divide [between local authorities who are benefiting from adopting this approach and those who are not].”
Entwistle argues that local authorities must take a more proactive role in driving innovation across projects.
“There is a disassociation of responsibility for solving the problem which is pushed to a contractor,” he says.
“They have to give time to appreciate what technology can do, to learn what the differences are. Unfortunately, that is advice that often falls on deaf ears because one thing local authorities do not have, beyond money, is time.”