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Research to practice: CIRIA industry briefing at Highways UK 2015 

On 26 November CIRIA hosted an industry briefing at the Highways UK conference considering ‘Research to practice: innovation and research in the highways sector’. 

The panellists for this industry briefing were Ben Harris, Technical Director, Temple Group; Dr Tom Dolan, Research Associate, UCL; Richard Long, Technical Director, Acoustic Sensing; and Nabil Abou-Rahme, Director Transport Technology, Mott MacDonald. 

Moving towards intelligent mobility and assets will enable UK road users, operators, designers and managers to address increased demand on roads, potential risks and environmental impact, and the improving user experience, amongst other issues. 

This requires continued research and funding into developing innovation programmes to support these projects. Pilot programmes can often be difficult to implement on a larger regional or national scale, even following successful localised testing and evaluation. The development of business cases for investing in these technologies is vital to ensure future capability, capacity and confidence in the people, skills and equipment needed to deliver at the scale that will meet the Government's ambition.

Growing and developing the UK road network under the recent DfT Road Network Strategy presents significant challenges in meeting these ambitious targets by 2040. The predicted increase of 27-57% increase in traffic by 2040 will add to these pressures and requires long term and strategic investment in technologies and research that address current and future scenarios. 

Innovation in highway design and delivery is for the first time to be ring-fenced, with a series of funds targeting key areas for research and development. These include a £300M Environment fund, a £150M Innovation Fund, a £100M Air Quality Fund and a £100M Growth and Housing Fund. 

“Like most road improvements over the past decade, the Investment Plan focuses on upgrades to the network we already have, rather than on building entirely new roads. Many of the upgrades involve improving junctions to drive greater performance without expanding the network, including developing the Smart Motorway network to increase capacity without significantly enlarging the network’s physical footprint.”
Road Investment Strategy: Overview, Dept for Transport

The Construction Leadership Council will continue to support the aims of Construction 2025  across five broad themes. The CLC will work with Strategic Forum network specifically on a work stream which will consider innovation and focusing on industrialisation and smart infrastructure priority areas.

There is an increased focus on accelerating impact from research councils and innovate UK, to maximise the return on investment  and support the application of research and innovations to industry.

EPSRC have identified that £1.69bn of their research portfolio is directly relevant to delivering the government industrial strategy. Within this, they have identified that £111M of this relates to transport (including vehicle technologies etc), and £197M relates to construction. 

Areas in which EPSRC envisage potential for research in the infrastructure sector are in the digital inference using sensor technology and robotics to manage performance and make ageing infrastructure resilient (this could fall under the concept of internet of things and big data). There will also be a focus on multidisciplinary research into the role infrastructure and transport will play as part of city systems, bringing together social, environmental and engineering disciplines. Research into sustainability of construction processes and the materials used will also be important.

The panel addressed a number of questions: 
  • What are the common drivers for clients when considering when and how innovation should be considered, as opposed to established business as usual processes?
  • How do current research programmes contribute to industry improvements in the highways sector?
  • What are the barriers to implementation of innovation or research 
  • Do we need new and different mechanisms for embedding innovation, building the business case for investment and reporting on returns and successes?
  • How does investing in innovation help to deliver targets across other areas (environment, H&S, low carbon etc.) 
This industry briefing is part of a series of activities CIRIA is undertaking to better understand the processes employed by organisations in identifying innovation needs, and the approaches used to fund, deliver and apply the new knowledge or guidance produced and the common drivers faced by infrastructure owners from planning, design, construction and asset management. This will inform future CIRIA projects and activities as we support our members in championing innovation and utilising research. 

CIRIA is currently undertaking an industry wide survey to seek additional feedback on how organisations approach research and innovation in the infrastructure sector. It seeks, in particular, organisations’ views on their approaches from identifying and prioritising research, procuring or undertaking activities through to using the outcome to innovate.

This survey is open to all who are engaged in the infrastructure sector, from designers, operator, consultants and client.

Take part in this CIRIA industry consultation survey today. 

Ruth Hynes, CIRIA Network Manager