#AsktheDfT: Surveying roads – Moving away from the status quo

To provide local authorities with more choice, DfT is developing a data standard for road condition monitoring which warrants multiple technologies, including SCANNER, to carry out surveying (for fulfilling single data list obligations).
This data standard would be designed to achieve the following principles: widely used; well-maintained over time; allows innovation; ensures high-quality, comparable data is generated.

Description

Following the 2019 Transport Select Committee report ‘Local roads funding and maintenance: filling the gap’, DfT has undertaken a review into the technology and data required to develop the best insight into highways condition at a national and local level.

SCANNER technology...

Following the 2019 Transport Select Committee report ‘Local roads funding and maintenance: filling the gap’, DfT has undertaken a review into the technology and data required to develop the best insight into highways condition at a national and local level.

SCANNER technology continues to be robust and valued by many local authorities. However, in reviewing the current surveying regime, the DfT considers that the current UKPMS standard limits choices for local authorities by mandating which surveying technology they must use to fulfil their single data list obligations.

Mandating a single form of road surveying technology could limit innovation in this sphere with negative consequences – ultimately – for the breadth, scope, and accessibility of road condition data outputs. This also restricts local authorities’ choice to a single surveying technology, or results in additional surveys being carried out using other technologies (with associated costs to the authority).

In order to get feedback on the proposed data standard, the Department for Transport (DfT) is working with the Local Council Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG) to deliver its second #AsktheDfT event. The event will bring together a panel of experts, focused around the development of a data standard.

Requirements

No requirements

You will learn

• Gain an understanding of the challenges facing councils and how that contributes to the scope of the data standard
• Hear directly from councils to get a variety of different perspectives
• Understand where the pinch points are and get a view of what good looks like

Who is it for?

• Chief Executive
• Director of Service
• Engineer
• Head of Service
• Inspector
• Manager
• Portfolio Holder
• Team Leader
• Technician