Why are roadworks so badly managed?
Discussion
V10leptoquark said:
See my reply above 
The cost of health and safety compliance, not only in terms of procedures but also in training every individual up to a standard of knowledge along with companies having to also demonstrate compliance is huge.
Now of course, health and safety is a hugely important thing - nobody goes to work expecting to be harmed, but the cost associated with it all and the tight-rope that is walked in terms of opening oneself to the claim culture has limited the UK in what it can do, and as such our competitiveness to make/build things compared to places where health and safety regulations are much weaker is very obvious to the extreme.
Of course the numbers of workforce that are injured/killed in places like China is also obvious.
But on balance I think the UK needs to streamline and very much reduce the cost of regulation compliance, and even dare I say limit what can be claimed against.
There is a term in civil engineering called "as low as reasonably practicable" , which applies to designs in terms of risk. Its fairly open ended (or close ended depending on which angle you want to look at it), but its in the courts whereby the opposing sides would argue the "reasonable" aspect of an incident and its claim.
If the UK is to be able to build things again without the huge cost associated with it then the balance of how a judge views the term "reasonable" may have to swing back somewhat in favour of there being an acceptance of more risk and its consequences. ? (just a thought)
I don't think that's the problem at all, though.The cost of health and safety compliance, not only in terms of procedures but also in training every individual up to a standard of knowledge along with companies having to also demonstrate compliance is huge.
Now of course, health and safety is a hugely important thing - nobody goes to work expecting to be harmed, but the cost associated with it all and the tight-rope that is walked in terms of opening oneself to the claim culture has limited the UK in what it can do, and as such our competitiveness to make/build things compared to places where health and safety regulations are much weaker is very obvious to the extreme.
Of course the numbers of workforce that are injured/killed in places like China is also obvious.
But on balance I think the UK needs to streamline and very much reduce the cost of regulation compliance, and even dare I say limit what can be claimed against.
There is a term in civil engineering called "as low as reasonably practicable" , which applies to designs in terms of risk. Its fairly open ended (or close ended depending on which angle you want to look at it), but its in the courts whereby the opposing sides would argue the "reasonable" aspect of an incident and its claim.
If the UK is to be able to build things again without the huge cost associated with it then the balance of how a judge views the term "reasonable" may have to swing back somewhat in favour of there being an acceptance of more risk and its consequences. ? (just a thought)
It's not claims that are the issue, it's a generally lazy work force, everything gets done "tomorrow", and then you have not enough workers on the task. I'm sure there is plenty of poorly managed road works out there hence my suggestion that dates are agreed, if dates are not met you get stiff penalties for delays.
Dromedary66 said:
alorotom said:
And yet in Dubai as an example they decided they needed a new junction on one of their busy mways. They did the whole works over one weekend, doing it in 2halves ... Would have taken at least 12mths here.
Unlike them, we don't have an unlimited supply of Indian slaves who can be whipped to the point of death.I’d also imagine everything is govt run rather than privately owned so logistics are a bit easier
V10leptoquark said:
xjay1337 said:
Really does make me wonder why in other countries, such as China, they can build a 30 story sky scraper in a few weeks but in the UK they can't fix 2 miles of road in the same time scales.
.
See my reply above .
The cost of health and safety compliance, not only in terms of procedures but also in training every individual up to a standard of knowledge along with companies having to also demonstrate compliance is huge.
Now of course, health and safety is a hugely important thing - nobody goes to work expecting to be harmed, but the cost associated with it all and the tight-rope that is walked in terms of opening oneself to the claim culture has limited the UK in what it can do, and as such our competitiveness to make/build things compared to places where health and safety regulations are much weaker is very obvious to the extreme.
Of course the numbers of workforce that are injured/killed in places like China is also obvious.
But on balance I think the UK needs to streamline and very much reduce the cost of regulation compliance, and even dare I say limit what can be claimed against.
There is a term in civil engineering called "as low as reasonably practicable" , which applies to designs in terms of risk. Its fairly open ended (or close ended depending on which angle you want to look at it), but its in the courts whereby the opposing sides would argue the "reasonable" aspect of an incident and its claim.
If the UK is to be able to build things again without the huge cost associated with it then the balance of how a judge views the term "reasonable" may have to swing back somewhat in favour of there being an acceptance of more risk and its consequences. ? (just a thought)
xjay1337 said:
.. hence my suggestion that dates are agreed, if dates are not met you get stiff penalties for delays.
This already happens.Contracts of works are set by funding agreements, deadlines and penalties. If deadlines are not met then the contractor either has to provide reasons for why somebody else is to blame or they suffer the cost penalty associated with missing it.
What I think you may be aiming towards is the programming, planning aspects of works. Often enough these can be rushed and ill thought out which leads to times where no works is taking place due to things like transfer of one workforce to another, waiting for materials to cure, bad planning for when materials should arrive on site, and so on, the list can be tiresome.
If you take a look at the Crossrail project for example, which of course has had the usual tight margins on costs - which then leads to things being rushed in order that contractors can make a profit by saving on man hours - which leads to mistakes, one which has been highlighted has been bad planning resulting in the situations mentioned above.... which leads to cost overruns, workforce waiting around for other things to happen before they can proceed etc. etc.
But importantly underpinning all this is the cost of everyone involved in adhering to health and safety with the constant fear of either criminal or civil claims if anything were to go wrong. But like I say, H&S of people is important, but maybe us here in the UK need to streamline and reduce the burden if we are to be competitive and be able to build new things that the public purse can actually afford.
It's not about having slaves to whip or health and safety to worry about. It's about giving a crap and having any kind of intelligence or pride in your work.
In Japan, this took 2 days to fix. Whilst the rest of the country was also fixing its self from an earthquake.
This took 6 days.
In Japan, this took 2 days to fix. Whilst the rest of the country was also fixing its self from an earthquake.
This took 6 days.
Its a licence to print money, literally.
Our local "ring road improvement scheme" has just cost about £20M and should have taken 6 months instead it took well over a year.
You think that sounds ok for a ring road. Then you realise its for a 500m section of the road ONLY that's about 7 miles long!
That's £40,000 per meter!
The main contractor went bankrupt half way through. Sub contractors abandoned their machines in the now single lane of live road which caused 8 hours of total traffic chaos.
They have "improved" 3 junctions, however the next stage of the plan is to funnel even more traffic through that area by closing down other access points so congestion will be just as bad as it used to be.
For the last 12-18 months we have had to put up with travel times of 40-60 minutes for a 500m stretch of road.
My business sits right at the end of the road so our only route out to the east is this road, in the last year I estimate we have lost at the very least 500+ hours due to these roadworks. And on the days when there were accidents in the roadworks, forget it. We have lost tens of thousands of pounds of business.
Its a total (unfunny) joke.
Our local "ring road improvement scheme" has just cost about £20M and should have taken 6 months instead it took well over a year.
You think that sounds ok for a ring road. Then you realise its for a 500m section of the road ONLY that's about 7 miles long!
That's £40,000 per meter!
The main contractor went bankrupt half way through. Sub contractors abandoned their machines in the now single lane of live road which caused 8 hours of total traffic chaos.
They have "improved" 3 junctions, however the next stage of the plan is to funnel even more traffic through that area by closing down other access points so congestion will be just as bad as it used to be.
For the last 12-18 months we have had to put up with travel times of 40-60 minutes for a 500m stretch of road.
My business sits right at the end of the road so our only route out to the east is this road, in the last year I estimate we have lost at the very least 500+ hours due to these roadworks. And on the days when there were accidents in the roadworks, forget it. We have lost tens of thousands of pounds of business.
Its a total (unfunny) joke.
New housing development road 'alterations' locally. They got over 30 houses of 50/60 up in 2 years. The roundabout and pedestrian crossing they told the council they would put in place was started back then but still hasn't been completed. Utter p*ss-taking tw*ts, complete chaos is the result and has been for 2 years. How do they get away with it?
I guess overall it’s the classic builders ruse of starting a job with much ceremony and lofty promises only for them to bugger off half way through and trap another client so they’ve got a steady stream of work.
Doesn’t matter whether it’s a loft conversion or a motorway upgrade.
Funnily enough I’ve never, ever met anyone who proudly claimed to be in road construction.
Doesn’t matter whether it’s a loft conversion or a motorway upgrade.
Funnily enough I’ve never, ever met anyone who proudly claimed to be in road construction.
Zarco said:
Devils advocate: How do you feel about more tax money to pay for that?
Fine.Accept the contractors' fee on the proviso they get the work done in a set time-frame. Deduct a percentage of the fee for every week that the work overruns. Insist on sensible traffic routing to help minimise congestion.
But the councils won't do that, because it's all a race to the bottom of getting things done as cheaply as possible.
It is absolutely infuriating. Utility companies and contractors just randomly dig up major roads, put in a set of temporary traffic lights or lane restrictions, and then proceed to gently saunter about doing the work at their own glacial pace.
My latest encounter was the collapsed/failed drain just before the sliplane onto the M3 northbound at J3, on the A322 from Bracknell. I refuse to believe that needed to take over a week to fix, causing absolute gridlock on a major arterial route in the meantime.
Howard- said:
Zarco said:
Devils advocate: How do you feel about more tax money to pay for that?
Fine.Accept the contractors' fee on the proviso they get the work done in a set time-frame. Deduct a percentage of the fee for every week that the work overruns. Insist on sensible traffic routing to help minimise congestion.
But the councils won't do that, because it's all a race to the bottom of getting things done as cheaply as possible.
It is absolutely infuriating. Utility companies and contractors just randomly dig up major roads, put in a set of temporary traffic lights or lane restrictions, and then proceed to gently saunter about doing the work at their own glacial pace.
My latest encounter was the collapsed/failed drain just before the sliplane onto the M3 northbound at J3, on the A322 from Bracknell. I refuse to believe that needed to take over a week to fix, causing absolute gridlock on a major arterial route in the meantime.
Installing/fixing utilities is a different kettle of fish.
I don't understand why big road works projects are not worked on 24hrs a day. The technology exists to allow better than daylight and would get the job done in half the time.
Obviously won't apply to resurfacing the road outside houses but in big motorways where there isn't houses to be affected by noise surely it would make sense
Obviously won't apply to resurfacing the road outside houses but in big motorways where there isn't houses to be affected by noise surely it would make sense
Cfnteabag said:
I don't understand why big road works projects are not worked on 24hrs a day. The technology exists to allow better than daylight and would get the job done in half the time.
Obviously won't apply to resurfacing the road outside houses but in big motorways where there isn't houses to be affected by noise surely it would make sense
A lot of the works can only take place when traffic volumes are low enough to be deemed 'safe levels'. Obviously won't apply to resurfacing the road outside houses but in big motorways where there isn't houses to be affected by noise surely it would make sense
Otherwise congestion builds up and you get people doing wierd stuff in frustration.
So the majority of works now only takes place during night time hours and even then it can be quite restrictive on which hours can be worked due to some areas being that busy that it means traffic volumes don't get to 'safe levels' until the small hours of the morning.
I wouldn't mind so much if work over ran and costs went up if you got a stellar job out of it but we just don't. Local contraflows around me end up shunting easily 10 times the normal traffic levels through my area and the whole place comes to a stand still for hours. Who has a 45 minute jam at 9pm in the middle of a sleepy village? Then the road opens for all of 2 weeks before it all crumbles to bits because it's been made out of cream crackers and it all starts again.
The M6 is good at the minute. 3 separate lane closures this week for emergency repairs all within ~10 miles of each other. Absolute catastrophe. Admittedly, these have been getting resolved very quickly but you'd think if they did a good job in the first place, there wouldn't be a need for remedial work this often!
The M6 is good at the minute. 3 separate lane closures this week for emergency repairs all within ~10 miles of each other. Absolute catastrophe. Admittedly, these have been getting resolved very quickly but you'd think if they did a good job in the first place, there wouldn't be a need for remedial work this often!
V10leptoquark said:
A lot of the works can only take place when traffic volumes are low enough to be deemed 'safe levels'.
Otherwise congestion builds up and you get people doing wierd stuff in frustration.
So the majority of works now only takes place during night time hours and even then it can be quite restrictive on which hours can be worked due to some areas being that busy that it means traffic volumes don't get to 'safe levels' until the small hours of the morning.
So people get frustrated because little progress appears to be being made resulting in congestion, and the answer is to do even less?Otherwise congestion builds up and you get people doing wierd stuff in frustration.
So the majority of works now only takes place during night time hours and even then it can be quite restrictive on which hours can be worked due to some areas being that busy that it means traffic volumes don't get to 'safe levels' until the small hours of the morning.
Grrrrrreat.
in sight. V10leptoquark said:
Cfnteabag said:
I don't understand why big road works projects are not worked on 24hrs a day. The technology exists to allow better than daylight and would get the job done in half the time.
Obviously won't apply to resurfacing the road outside houses but in big motorways where there isn't houses to be affected by noise surely it would make sense
A lot of the works can only take place when traffic volumes are low enough to be deemed 'safe levels'. Obviously won't apply to resurfacing the road outside houses but in big motorways where there isn't houses to be affected by noise surely it would make sense
Otherwise congestion builds up and you get people doing wierd stuff in frustration.
So the majority of works now only takes place during night time hours and even then it can be quite restrictive on which hours can be worked due to some areas being that busy that it means traffic volumes don't get to 'safe levels' until the small hours of the morning.
Road worker deaths will never be 0, the elephant in the room is has the desire for worker safety gone too far at the expense of getting the job done.
Bearing in mind that lots of h&s people will be writing reams of rules that aren't legally required but are creeping excellence.
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