New safer road workzone practices

In the UK, the construction business Connect Plus Services is implementing new practices that reduce the need for crossings of live carriageways. These practices are expected to save the lives of road construction workers. Connect Plus Services is the company that has the contract to maintain, operate and upgrade the M25 motorway around London over a 30-year period. The contract is carried out on behalf of the Highways Agency. The firm has developed a new method of managing traffic approaching road construc
September 15, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
In the UK, the construction business Connect Plus Services is implementing new practices that reduce the need for crossings of live carriageways. These practices are expected to save the lives of road construction workers. Connect Plus Services is the company that has the contract to maintain, operate and upgrade the M25 motorway around London over a 30-year period. The contract is carried out on behalf of the 2309 Highways Agency. The firm has developed a new method of managing traffic approaching road construction zones, with the aim of saving the lives of site personnel. The method, which has now been approved for use on the English motorway network, will prevent millions of crossings being made by site personnel across busy live carriageways in front of traffic travelling at fast speeds.

Road maintenance is one of the riskiest employment sectors to work. Trials carried out by Connect Plus Services, with the support of RoWSaF (an industry body which develops ways to improve the health, safety and welfare of our road workers), the Highways Agency and the Transport Research Laboratory (777 TRL), have shown that improved overhead electronic signage and nearside signage removes the need for temporary central reservation signage as a way of encouraging motorists to slow down on the approach to roadworks. The method was piloted and implemented on over 1,000km of the network over a two-year period by Connect Plus Services, (a joint venture partnership between 1146 Balfour Beatty, 3005 Atkins and 2643 Egis Roads SA), with support from 1530 Balfour Beatty Mott MacDonald, and has already saved over a million crossings by personnel.

The removal of the need to place central carriageway signage across live carriageways applies to carriageways of over three lanes and will be a major contributor to the Highways Agency’s target of eliminating all live carriageway crossings by roadworkers by December 2014.
Highway & Network Management

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Skanska Balfour Beatty install first M25 superspan gantry during motorway upgrade
    August 22, 2013
    The first superspan gantry has been installed over the M25 motorway near London, England. The structure near Junction 24 (Potters Bar, Hertfordshire) is part of the €219.92 million (£188 million) Managed Motorway scheme to upgrade the motorway between junctions 23 and 27. Weighing 36 tonnes and measuring 40m across, it is the first of five superspan gantries which will be installed during the project being carried out by Skanska Balfour Beatty, on behalf of the Highways Agency. The gantries will
    Read More
  • Balfour Beatty wins Midlands road technology maintenance package
    April 23, 2014
    Balfour Beatty has secured its third Regional Technology Maintenance Contract (RTMC) from the Highways Agency. This deal is worth some €10.56 million (£8.7 million) over five years. The package involves maintaining around 28,000 technology assets on behalf of the Highways Agency and will cover both the Highways Agency’s Area 7 (the East Midlands) and Area 9 (the West Midlands). The technology service provided by Balfour Beatty includes responsibility for managing and maintaining road-side technology systems
    Read More
  • UK motorway upgrade ahead of schedule
    May 1, 2014
    Joint venture contractor Skanska Balfour Beatty has completed work on a 19km section of the M25 motorway in the UK, six months ahead of schedule. Work on the M25 scheme between junctions 5 and 7 in Kent and Surrey forms part of a new generation of technology-driven improvements on the UK’s strategic road network.
    Read More
  • Upgrade work starts on junction of London’s orbital motorway M25
    February 20, 2015
    Work has started on a €136 million road improvement project on the UK’s London ring road, the M25 motorway. Crews from Balfour Beatty and Skanska have moved onto the interchange between the A13 national road and the M25 at junction 30 near Thurrock in the county Essex. The A13 on approach to the junction will be widened to four lanes in each direction and the junction itself will have dedicated link roads between the M25 and the A13. “Traffic at the junction is expected to grow by up to a quarter b
    Read More

Highlighted Content