Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR ARCHIE
ROBERTSON OBE, HIGHWAYS
AGENCY
8 DECEMBER 2004
Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon, welcome
to the Committee of Public Accounts, where today we look at tackling
congestion by making better use of England's motorways and trunk
roads. We are joined by the Chief Executive of the Highways Agency,
Mr Archie Robertson. You are very welcome. You are on your own?
Mr Robertson: I am.
Q2 Chairman: You are very welcome. Could
I please ask you to look at the Comptroller and Auditor General's
Report and refer to Part Two of his report, which is headed: "The
Agency has made little use of measures used abroad", and
particularly ask you to look at Figure 4. Paragraph 2.2 details
some of the ideas that we could be using more to relieve congestion
on our motorways and, also, makes the point that, apparently,
the Netherlands and, particularly, Germany have been more innovative
in this area. Why have you fallen so behind other countries, Mr
Robertson, in the innovative use of new solutions to relieve congestion?
Mr Robertson: There have been
some differences in approach, Chairman, which are pointed out
by the National Audit Office in their report. There are a number
of areas where, I recognise, we need to do some catching up, but
that is not the only reason that there are tools which are more
widely used elsewhere than there are in this country, in England,
and at this time. If we run through the list under Figure 4, for
example, tidal flow is something that we have examined several
times over the years and found that as an application we cannot
find the business case for it or even a suitable location to try
it. Dedicated lanes are already in use in this country in four
locations, including two which comprise the M4 bus lane and another
one that we trialled this summer on the M5 going south in order
to try and ease congestion from people heading to the South West
for their holidays. We are just finishing a piece of work suggesting
that more high-occupancy vehicle lanes are put in place in this
country, and a recommendation will go to the Secretary of State
on that very soon. We do use ramp metering, which is the next
of those technical innovations—traffic signals to control
traffic coming on to motorways—and we have identified that
there are many sites where ramp metering may work. However, we
will never be able to replicate the business cases of the leading
exponents of this particular tool, which is Dutch, and that is
because they take a different view to the way in which public
sector money is committed and perhaps a greater willingness to
take risk or, indeed, a longer-run view of things. I am still
trying to understand that better. That is certainly material in
the whole context of things. The other thing I think we need to
bear in mind is that geography matters here. We have the most
hardworking motorways anywhere—and I do not mean "anywhere
but", I mean "anywhere". So we are putting more
vehicles through our motorways than anybody else and for things
like ramp metering, which rely on very short injections of traffic
from side roads into the main carriageway, it is very difficult
to actually come up with a system that will manage that.
Q3 Chairman: So are you saying, then,
that no, there are no lessons that we can learn from other countries?
Everything is fine here; our roads are not congested? They are
obviously congested, we know that—you are not suggesting
that for a moment, I know—but the whole purport of your
answers seems to be, if you do not mind me saying so, rather complacent.
Mr Robertson: I am not satisfied
that we have done enough on dedicated lanes, and that is why we
are putting forward a proposal just now. I believe there are things
we can do in ramp metering that are currently being held back
by bureaucracy and risk aversionists and I will be proposing to
put in about 30 from the original 100, but the others do not stack
up on the business case. We are pleased with the progress on the
capability of the variable speed limits approach, and we want
to roll that out in combination with other improvements that we
are making, including widening the motorways. So there is lots
to do, Chairman.
Q4 Chairman: Let us look at one of these
ideas, which is hard shoulder running, and look at paragraph 2.34.
I have to say, the Chairman of the Transport Select Committee
does not believe, apparently, in hard shoulder running, but that
does not stop us looking at it anyway. Do you believe in it and,
if it is a good idea, why have you delayed introducing it for
so long?
Mr Robertson: In my view it is
a good idea and I am looking forward to getting the first stage
of it running next summer and then to seeing a full hard shoulder
running pilot running from summer of 2006. It has a long and difficult
history which really keeps coming back to various stakeholders'
concerns about whether it can be made to operate safely. That
included, originally, people from within the Highways Agency who
concluded that it would be very difficult to do without good technology
in terms of knowing about traffic speeds and being able to see
what was going on. That we can now do and that is what is being
implemented on the M42 pilot.
Q5 Chairman: You see, I find it disappointing
to note your hesitancy in responding to overseas initiatives,
particularly, in Holland and Germany, and I wonder whether it
would be a fair criticism that your agency is too much in hock
to special interests.
Mr Robertson: I do not know what
those special interests would be.
Q6 Chairman: Take the AA and the RAC,
for a start.
Mr Robertson: I have many robust
discussions with the AA and the RAC, including on this particular
topic and including, particularly, the roll-out of the traffic
officer role (which I am sure you will want to talk to me about)
where they had, equally, concerns about their business. I think
we do need to recognise—
Q7 Chairman: What have they said about
hard shoulder running, for instance?
Mr Robertson: They are very concerned,
as people who are going to have to—
Q8 Chairman: Hang on a moment. Would
one of the reasons why they are apparently very concerned be that
they sometimes have the contract for getting their emergency vehicles
down the hard shoulder in road works? That, of course, would be
nothing to do with their hesitancy?
Mr Robertson: It may be, but the
hesitancy that everybody has had is the fact that people have
to get out of vehicles in order to rescue stranded people. They
may be ambulance workers, they may be AA workers, they may be
RAC workers, and they will almost certainly be Highways Agency
workers. We have to look after our people.
Q9 Chairman: Can you please look at page
30? "The Agency started to install inappropriate technology
in the South East region before changing its mind." (This
is covered in paragraphs 3.12 and 3.13.) Why did you do that?
Mr Robertson: The Agency had,
at that time, a technology strategy and a road building or road
widening strategy which were not completely joined up, frankly.
Had it been as we proposed to evolve it then there would have
been less exposure to this. There were, however pragmatic decisions
made about how information could be provided so that customers—road-users—would
benefit from information, albeit for a while not in the latest
form of presentation.
Q10 Chairman: If you look at paragraph
3.16 on page 31 you can see that there is disparity in these technologies.
How long will it take for the technology in the South East to
be as good as elsewhere?
Mr Robertson: There will be a
big catch up and an evening out as we implement the widening of
the M1 and the M25—the M25 round the north of London and
the M1 virtually all the way up—because in behind that we
will put in the technology, frankly, at a lower cost than we would
have been able to do by doing it piece-meal. I would have to make
the point, however, that it is unlikely that as technology develops
and we introduce new means of either disseminating or collecting
information that we would necessarily do it the same way right
across the country. I think the messages received by our road-users
have to be consistent; I do not think it should be mandatory that
we deliver them all in the same way.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
Q11 Mr Steinberg: Mr Robertson, this
report makes very depressing reading, does it not, particularly
if you are a motorist? Would you agree or not? There is not an
innovation in sight.
Mr Robertson: I think what this
report shows, and I am grateful for the recognition of the National
Audit Office, is that there are a number of things that we are
doing which are up with the best. The innovation, if you want
one to think about, is the introduction of traffic officers, which
is unique, in terms of this agency.
Q12 Mr Steinberg: I cannot say that I
have really noticed that when I have been stuck in congested traffic
jams. What did you say it was called?
Mr Robertson: The Highways Agency
is launching a traffic officer service. It is rolling out in the
Midlands now and by the end of next year they will be patrolling
all of the motorways.
Q13 Mr Steinberg: Patrolling. So when
I am stuck on the Western Bypass they will get me out of a traffic
jam, will they?
Mr Robertson: What they will do
is they will clear the accident that currently detains you for
a long time.
Q14 Mr Steinberg: They cannot be much
slower than the police are. I will come to that, in a minute or
two. You said there are more vehicles than anywhere else and you
have quoted that, I think. But you have done less about it than
anywhere else, have you not?
Mr Robertson: Let me clarify—
Q15 Mr Steinberg: You have been in the
job a year, Mr Robertson. What have you done in that one year
that you have been in the job to improve the traffic situation—congestion?
Mr Robertson: It is important
just to clarify, in terms of flows, that the last measured numbers
that we have and that we have been able to compare with our colleagues
in other agencies show that UK motorways take an average of 73,000
vehicles a day; Dutch roads take an average of 68,000 vehicles
a day, and other roads in France, Germany and the US are handling
between 32,000 and 50,000—
Q16 Mr Steinberg: I am not bothered about
that. Honestly, I could not care less how many cars are on the
road in France and I could not care less how many cars there are
on the roads in Holland; all I care about is that when I drive
up the Western Bypass to bypass Newcastle and Gateshead I get
stuck in a traffic jam which is usually about four miles long.
That traffic jam is there virtually every day of life. You get
so sick that sometimes you lose the will to live when you are
sitting in a traffic jam. Yet nothing has been done, certainly
nothing that I can remember; it is just getting worse and worse
and worse. What have you done to help me when I am stuck in a
traffic jam sitting for 30 minutes not moving? What have you done
to help me?
Mr Robertson: This year we have
put a very significant amount of our investment into new road
schemes on the M1 going north, particularly north of Scotch Corner.
So we are building new roads.
Q17 Mr Steinberg: I did not ask you that
question; I said "What have you done to help me in my predicament?"
I could not care less about the M1; I very rarely go on it. What
worries me as I go to Newcastle, possibly twice a week when I
am home, is that I sit in a traffic jam for 30-35 minutes and
I never move. What have you done to help me on the Western Bypass?
Nought.
Mr Robertson: If you look at our
website you will find information on all the places that are going
to be congested and, at the very least now—it may not encourage
you too much—you can think about when you might want to
travel; perhaps not at the same time as everybody else.
Q18 Mr Steinberg: If I have an aeroplane
to catch at nine o'clock it is no good going at 11 o'clock because
I will have just missed it by two hours. It is a load of rubbish,
to be quite honest, to say I should decide when I am going to
travel. The vast majority of people travel when they have got
to travel. If I do not have to travel I do not travel at all.
So the fact of the matter is if I want to go to Newcastle airport
in order to catch a `plane at 10 o'clock to get down here, I have
to travel at that particular time, but I have got to set off two
hours beforehand because I know if I take the Western Bypass I
am going to be stuck. It is getting worse and worse and worse,
and your organisation is doing nothing about it; not a thing.
What are you going to do about it?
Mr Robertson: I am happy to take
another look at the particular route that you are talking about.
We are going to be investing significantly in—
Q19 Mr Steinberg: You see, you do not
even do that. You do not even have on the motorway a sign which
says: "Don't come on to the motorway because there's a five-mile
traffic jam. Why don't you take an alternative route?" At
the moment, you do not know that; you guess that you are going
to hit the traffic jam but you pray to God when you come on the
slip road, "I hope there's no traffic jam." You get
on it and you fly down it at 69 miles an hour, you fly down for
three or four miles and then suddenly, whack, you hit it. Your
organisation has never told me that there is going to be a traffic
jam three miles down there and I am going to be stuck in it for
35 minutes. The only thing I know is that it has got a square
sign which says "FOG" as you are going through. Everyone
knows there is fog when you are getting to it, because you hit
it, but you have a sign which I think was put up in the 60s which
says "FOG. Travel at 30 mile an hour." That is the only
information you have got. Why is there no information? I would
have thought it was the simplest thing in the world to do to just
put a bit of information up to help me, because I would rather
travel 20 miles extra, right round the lanes of Durham and Northumberland,
than to go on to the motorway and hit a four-mile traffic jam.
Mr Robertson: I recognise that
once you are on the network your options are greatly reduced.
That is why the National Traffic Control Centre has, as part of
its mission, the delivery of information to local TV and radio
and, indeed, to the website because those are, we know, the methods
that most people use in order to do their journey plan. There
is significant investment in that enhanced quality, and I would
hope that any blockage on the Highways Agency network was identified
and informed to you via local radio.
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