Highway Asset Management
Highways Asset Management Framework
Our Highways Asset Management Framework aims to assist the council in creating a safe, reliable and accessible transportation system which supports development of a strong low carbon economy, maximising the opportunities for sustainable transport and protecting the environment.
Like most highway authorities, the condition of our carriageways and footways had become worse. This framework sets out how an asset management approach has helped, with early investment, to improve the condition of our highway infrastructure and reduce maintenance backlogs.
The framework was formally adopted in 2015 and asset management now plays a key role in helping us maintain and manage our highways.
What is asset management and why do we need it?
Asset management is a systematic process of maintaining, developing or upgrading assets (for highways this is our roads, structures, signs). It takes a structured approach to inspections, maintenance programmes and requirements for new assets and allows us to look at all transport issues collectively so we can plan for the future.
The framework sets out exactly how many highway assets we are responsible for:
| Size of Asset | Equivalent | |
| Carriageway | 1533 km (958 miles) | Yate to Rome |
| Footway | 1391 km (864 miles) | Bristol to Palma |
| Cycle routes | 118 km (73 miles) | Warmley to Stratford-upon-Avon |
| Public Rights of Way | 1,265 km (786 miles) | Almondsbury to Innsbruck |
| Traffic Signals |
74 Junctions 127 Crossings |
Fairy lights stretching 2 km 1 km of zebra stripes on the road |
|
Drainage Gullies Connecting Pipes Main Pipes |
45,000 Gulleys 135 km (86 miles) 171 km (106 miles) |
3.2 Olympic pools of water Winterbourne to Slough Patchway to Plymouth |
|
Bridges
Retaining Walls |
788 Bridges with total deck surface area of 47,500m2 | 7 football pitches |
| 341 Highway retaining walls with total length of 15 km | Yate to Kingswood | |
| Street Lighting |
29,500 Units (5,888 tonnes CO2) |
Lighting for 128,000 homes |
| Grass Verges | 2.9 million m2 | 425 football pitches |
In South Gloucestershire, more than 2.316 billion vehicle miles are driven each year and with traffic predicted to grow annually by 1.4%, we need to protect our assets from wear and tear and help support the economy.
Using asset management for our highways also allows us to access different funding and so far we have been very successful in bidding for central Government grants to improve our assets eg £21 million Challenge Fund for the A403 and A4174 including the Bromley Heath Viaduct.
Hierarchy
Hierarchy is splitting our network into levels based on use. At present we use A, B, C and Unclassified to categorise our roads but this means we have the same standards for minor rural tracks as we do for well used roads in our urban area and a rural A road is treated the same as the A4174 or A38.
Hierarchy enables us to set differing levels of service to manage these different roads to more appropriate standards. Following the publication of the Well-Managed Highways Infrastructure: Code of Practice, we are have reviewed our Levels of Service using a risk-based approach and updated our Highways Safety Inspection Policy and and Highway Safety Inspection Manual.
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