Performance

The Commissioner has a duty under section 16 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2005 to:

'Monitor the carrying out of works in roads in Scotland undertaken by both roads authorities and utility companies.'

He also became keeper of the Scottish Road Works Register (SRWR) on 1^st April 2008, so it is his responsibility to ensure that the Register is used effectively to ensure that effective planning and coordination of road works throughout Scotland.

For any management information system, the inputting of precise and timely data leads to the effective extraction of information and accurate reports. The SRWR is no exception, with thousands of notices being input every week from planned future works through to actual and historical works. We have been working with the road works community and now are at a stage where we have developed a suite of indicators which collectively will allow the Commissioner to judge the performance of utility companies and road authorities undertaking road works.

In order to successfully monitor, the desired outcomes should be considered initially . The key outcomes which the Commissioner considers that the public are looking for in relation to road works are:

Shorter Works Periods - works should be continuous and take no longer to complete than is absolutely necessary.
Better Co-ordination of Works - guidance on distance between works should be adhered to. Care should be taken to ensure that there are no works on sensitive parallel routes or diversion routes.
Better Traffic Management - compliance with codes regarding the placing of signs, cones and barriers and more consideration of practical issues on, for example, traffic signal timing changes which might be required and how to cater for pedestrian movements.
Better Reinstatements - when roads are dug up they need to be refilled correctly with suitable compacted material and the top running surface correctly replaced to provide a long lasting repair.

From this the Commissioner produced 5 key questions which any monitoring of road works should try to answer:

Are roads authorities coordinating the works on their roads?
Are utility companies cooperating with the roads authorities?
Are works taking too long to complete?
Is traffic management (the signs, cones and barriers associated with road works) to an acceptable standard?
Are reinstatements (the re-filling and re-surfacing of holes) in roads meeting the specification?

For each of the five key questions above, potential indicators have been identified. These can be found under Indicators / Statistics. None of these indicators alone could be used to determine the performance of either a roads authority or a utility company, however when taken together they will provide a good indication as to those organisations which are operating acceptably and those where there would appear to be room for improvement.