Skip to main content

Colas drives measures to improve safety in Area 7 workzones

A pilot scheme in the United Kingdom by Colas and Solar and Electric Gates (S&EG) is using a new automatic gate to help protect operatives in Area 7 work zones. The Readi-Guard has been developed for the joint venture A-one+, led by infrastructure contractor Costain. Colas and S&EG joined forces to engineer the gate system, which opens horizontally to allow authorised vehicles into work areas. It safeguards workers because manual gate operation is not required. “The TM Access Gate is a well thought
December 11, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
A pilot scheme in the United Kingdom by Colas and Solar and Electric Gates (S&EG) is using a new automatic gate to help protect operatives in Area 7 work zones.

The Readi-Guard has been developed for the joint venture 2316 A-one+, led by infrastructure contractor 2319 Costain.

184 Colas and S&EG joined forces to engineer the gate system, which opens horizontally to allow authorised vehicles into work areas. It safeguards workers because manual gate operation is not required.

“The TM Access Gate is a well thought-out solution to an issue that poses considerable risk to our workforce and the wider traffic management community,” said Ryan Wood, technical manager at Colas.

“Working with S&EG we have been able to develop a system that eliminates exposure to live traffic in situations when operatives are required to open works accesses. It is designed for ease of deployment and use in short-term works but is equally suited to longer term work sites.

"The innovation is important for the partners of the joint venture A-one+ because of its highways maintenance work in England. Two years ago, A-one+ won a two-year extension to its five-year managing agent contract, awarded the then Highways Agency, now called 8100 Highways England.

Under the €81 million contract that ends in June next year, A-One+ is carrying out operational and routine maintenance services and highway improvements to the motorways and trunk roads in the East Midlands region of England.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Traffic control solution manufacturers win key project works
    September 26, 2013
    Traffic control system manufacturers have recently supplied some of their cutting-edge technology to major projects in Europe. Meanwhile, in southern Asia, another leading firm in the sector is helping reduce chronic traffic congestion in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta. Guy Woodford reports Solutions supplied by Siemens Mobility & Logistics (M&L) are helping the Rijkswaterstaat improve traffic conditions at the Coentunnel in Amsterdam, one of the most heavily used traffic arteries in the Netherlands, used
  • ACE/AECOM report: private sector and user-pay for English roads
    May 14, 2018
    It’s one minute to midnight for funding England’s roads, according to a timely new report, and the clock’s big hand is pointing to some form of user-pay solution, reports David Arminas Is there any way out of future user-pay funding for England’s highway infrastructure? The answer is a resounding ‘no’, according to the recently published report: Funding Roads for the Future. The brief 25-page document by the London-based Association for Consultancy and Engineering, ACE**, sums up the state of England’s ro
  • Colas’s Yellow Project warns highway teams of collision risk
    November 7, 2017
    Colas’s Yellow Project has been developed with Aximum Electronic Products - a Colas Group Company - and software experts Foxstream. The system uses thermal imaging and video analytics to detect and classify approaching vehicles into “threat categories”. It identifies those that pose the greatest collision risk with a highway works vehicle or nearby workers. The thermal camera is mounted at height on the rear of a works or emergency vehicle and performs in both dark conditions and full sunlight. It does not
  • Balfour Beatty in 10-year extension to Exeter-Bere Regis road deal
    May 8, 2015
    A Balfour Beatty joint venture with South West Highways has been awarded a €55 million 10-year extension to its contract for operations and maintenance on the 102km A30/A35 main Exeter to Bere Regis road. The contract is on behalf of Connect Roads for ultimate customer Highways England, the newly named government roads agency. The joint venture – SWHBBIS - was appointed as the operations and maintenance contractor for this stretch of the trunk road in 1996. In 2006, the joint venture was re-appointed