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Chapter 2 Customer service
The OC contracts seek as a key objective "to enable a 'customer-oriented' approach to be further developed in the way roads are managed and maintained."
Key points
Reliability and reducing delays
The Scottish trunk road network is vital to the economy. It links major centres of population and industry as well as providing access to ferry ports.
- The OCs continue to manage their work well to minimise disruption, with 99.67% of the network available for use throughout 2004/05.
- All OCs undertook measures to reduce the amount of time they occupied the road with road closures.
Managing traffic for safety
Traffic management at roadworks is designed to provide a safe environment for operatives and road users.
- There was an improvement in traffic management compliance by BEAR.
- Amey continued to provide good traffic management, particularly on the larger more complicated schemes in the central belt.
- Improvement is still required in the notification of lane closures to NADICS controllers.
Repair of the most serious road defects (category 1 defects)
Prompt repair of these defects is important in maintaining safety for the road user. It also reduces the Department's exposure to third party claims.
- The OCs have taken action to improve the accuracy of the data in their RMMS.
- There has been marginal improvement in Amey's prompt repair of category 1 defects.
- BEAR's performance in repairing category 1 defects has deteriorated.
- The Department and PAG will continue to seek improvement in repair performance from all OCs in 2005/06.
Customer contact
An effective customer contact service ( CCS) allows road users to report trunk road defects or issues of concern.
- The total number of calls across all Units has increased by 54% from 2003/04.
- The use of CCS has increased annually, indicating its usefulness as a communication tool for the OCs and road users seeking to report and receive answers on issues relating to the network.
2.1 Reliability and reducing delays
A total of £161.9m was invested in maintaining Scotland's trunk roads through the OCs, on a variety of works, from routine activities such as grass cutting and pothole repairs, to more long-term carriageway reconstruction and resurfacing.
During 2004/05, some 13,000 individual work sites were managed and carried out by the OCs across the network, an equivalent of 35 sites per day.
To carry out this work safely, protecting the workforce and the road user, lane closures are often, but not always, required. The OCs must keep these lane closures to a minimum, by combining different work activities within one closure where possible and planning works to minimise disruption.
This year all OCs undertook measures to reduce the amount of time they occupied the road with lane closures. These included:
- BEAR programming a substantial amount of work to be carried out in the winter months, avoiding the busy summer tourist season.
- The OCs in the central belt, particularly SE and SW, programming works to be carried out at weekends and at night to avoid peak weekday periods.
- Lane rental contracts being used wherever possible to ensure early completion of works.
There were some limited road closures during the year due to winter conditions and landslides/flooding. These are covered in sections 4.2.7 and 4.2.10.
KPI 8, shown in figure 4, measures lane occupation in each of the Units over the year.
Figure 4KPI 08 - Road occupations
Unit | KPI 08 - road occupation (lane.km.hours over year) | % of network unavailable |
|---|
NE | 75,377 | 0.43 |
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NW | 24,582 | 0.10 |
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SE | 58,786 | 0.45 |
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SW | 79,105 | 0.47 |
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Total | 237,850 | 0.33 |
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Figure 4 shows the OCs continue to manage their work well to minimise disruption, with 99.67% of the network available for use throughout 2004/05. This shows a slight increase in road occupations from last year's 99.75%, reflecting the increased investment in the network and the amount of maintenance work completed.
2.2 Managing traffic for safety
2.2.1 Standards of operations
Traffic management allows the workforce to carry out maintenance and construction activities safely on the network. It is designed to protect the workforce and road users. Hence it is a highly important and essential element of the service provided by the OCs. Figure 5 shows a typical traffic management arrangement.
In carrying out their operations, the OCs are required to ensure traffic management installations meet national standards. This includes signing, coning and traffic control.
Figure 5Convoy working during resurfacing on A77 Minishant to Hoggs Corner in SW
It is encouraging to report that the OCs continue to provide a high standard of traffic management. Of the 1,300 sites visited by PAG, 92% complied with the required standards. 6% of sites visited had minor problems with traffic management, with only 2% having serious problems. This is approximately the same as last year, but still an improvement on the first years of the contracts. Not all traffic management is under the direct control of the OCs. Many sites are managed by works contractors and utilities.
Operations
In relation to the OCs' operations:
- There was an improvement in traffic management compliance in NE and NW. This was largely due to BEAR setting up a specialist division (Alba Ltd) within its organisation to deal solely with traffic management. However, there remain some site specific problems in NE, which the Department and PAG are monitoring.
- Amey continued to provide good traffic management, particularly on the larger more complicated schemes in the central belt.
- Some minor problems were identified in all NE and NW, particularly regarding the provision of motorway maintenance signs and flashing amber beacons on all OC site vehicles.
- The traffic management by third parties, particularly utility companies, was sometimes found to be poor. Despite not having direct control over these organisations, the OCs have taken action with them to improve standards, however further improvement is required by utilities.
- The ongoing use of 'convoy vehicles' throughout the network has provided additional safety to the workforce, and has minimised the number of road closures required to carry out maintenance activities in NW.
- The use of variable message signs operated by NADICS across the network continued to provide useful information to road users.
Despite Amey's high standards of traffic management, a site fatality occurred during the year on an M8 site in SW. Unfortunately an operative was killed when a drunk driver's car entered the working area. Clearly, there is a need for continuous vigilance to protect all parties.
2.2.2 Planning and programming
Proper planning and programming of work on the network is essential. This ensures delays to road users are minimised and road users are provided with accurate information on potential delays.
The contracts restrict the OCs to work at certain times of the day on the busier trunk road routes. The OCs are also required to report all lane closures to the NADICS operator. In 2004/05:
- Liaison and consultation by the OCs with local authorities, police, other emergency services, transport groups, other interested parties and the media was good in all Units.
- Operations were planned to cause minimal disruption to the road user.
- Weekly programmes and use of the NADICS roadworks diary could still be improved by all OCs, particularly in NE. Some information provided by the OCs was out of date and improvement is being sought under the notification of emerging issue ( NEI) process.
2.2.3 Works contracts
Works by third party contractors tend to be larger schemes with dedicated traffic management crews providing a high standard of service. PAG's key observations were:
- The introduction of innovative mobile 'smart signs' in the NW and NE to warn drivers approaching roadworks at high speed has been successful and greater use should be encouraged.
- The introduction of contraflows with buffer zones in SW has improved access for emergency service vehicles (see figure 6).
Figure 6Contraflow with buffer zone on M73 in SW
- As with the OCs' operations, continued use of convoy working systems has been beneficial.
- There was good programming to minimise delays, ensuring compliance with the Department's publication, Code of practice for reduction of delays at roadworks.
- Again, as with OCs' operations, improvement is still required in the notification of lane closures to the NADICS controller in all Units. The OCs have agreed to take this forward and this will be monitored by PAG.
2.3 Repair of the most serious road defects (category 1 defects)
Category 1 defects
Category 1 defects, the most serious defects, can include potholes, safety fence damage, parapet damage, sign damage and flooding. Defects are classified as category 1 when there is a concern for safety. The contracts have varying timescales for
the repair of different types of category 1 defect ranging from to 24 hours to 28 days depending on the road type.
Where a repair requires a 24 or 48 hour response and this is not practicable, the OCs may carry out a temporary repair and defer the permanent repair to be carried out within 28 days of identification.
To ensure the safety of the road user, the OCs are required to carry out safety inspections at regular intervals to identify category 1 defects. These defects require prompt repair to ensure the safety of the road user. Evidence of all inspections, defects and actions carried out must be recorded in the RMMS within 4 days. The inspection regime, prompt repair of identified defects and recording of action improves the safety of the network for road users and reduces the Department's exposure to third party claims.
The performance of the OCs is measured using data from the RMMS ( KPI 01 - permanent repair of category 1 defects within 28 days see figure 7). Following previous years' concerns regarding the accuracy of RMMS data, the OCs have taken action to improve accuracy.
Figure 7KPI 01 Permanent repair of category 1 defects
| NE | NW | SE | SW |
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| 2004/05 | 81% | 71% | 76% | 88% |
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2003/04 | 89% | 86% | 72% | 86% |
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The category 1 defect KPI data indicates:
Amey
- Repair performance is broadly similar to 2003/04, with only marginal improvement.
- In SW, repair performance is significantly better than in the other Units.
- Repair performance in SE started poorly, but improved towards the end of the year giving the average figure above. Therefore it is important that the late year performance is sustained.
BEAR
- Repair performance in NE has dropped from 2003/04, but performance has dropped significantly in NW.
- In NE, repair performance leaves room for improvement.
- In NW, there is much room for improvement in repair performance.
Section 4.3.4 shows long-term trends for this KPI.
During 2004/05, discussions have taken place between the Department, PAG and the OCs to implement an improved permanent repair standard for carriageway potholes as all OCs were not achieving the standard expected.
However, it is disappointing that the repair performance of all OCs has not improved significantly since 2003/04 and still requires attention, particularly in NW, where performance has worsened significantly this year. The Department and PAG will seek action from OCs in 2005/06 to resolve this issue.
2.4 Customer contact
Introduction
The contract requires the OCs to operate a CCS. All calls are logged in registers which can be audited. The OCs must also produce a monthly summary of the number of calls.
The CCS operates via an all Scotland trunk road fault reporting service telephone number. Figure 9 shows the freephone number (0800 028 1414), which is displayed on signs throughout the network, advising road users of the number to call if they wish to report a trunk road defect.
Calls made to this number are diverted to the appropriate Unit via a menu selection service. Customers select one of the first four options on the menu when they are aware which Unit they are in. Option 5 is selected where the customer is unaware of the Unit and the call defaults to SW which operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The other Units operate a manned service during office hours and an answering machine at other times.
CCS analysis
The number of calls received by each OC's CCS during 2004/05 are shown below in figure 8.
Figure 8Number of calls received by the CCS
Unit | Calls received 2004/05 | Calls received 2003/04 | Calls received 2002/03 |
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NE | 1,293 | 1,637 | 1,603 |
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NW | 1,446 | 1,568 | 1,894 |
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SE | 1,136 | 1,489 | 1,332 |
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SW | 18,178 | 9,593 | 8,226 |
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Total | 22,053 | 14,287 | 13,055 |
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The total number of calls across all Units has increased by 54% from 2003/04. This significant increase is due to SW, which has experienced an 89% increase. Other Units have experienced a general decrease since 2002/03. The higher number of calls to SW was due to:
- A doubling in the number of redirected calls including to other Units.
- A general increase in the number of calls across almost all defect categories.
- Amey employees working on the asset inventory collection excercise during 2004/05 reporting dangerous defects.
- A significant increase in the number of calls relating to flooding.
- Radio Scotland, Radio Clyde and Westsound Radio reporting incidents notified to them by callers. This is a two-way sharing of information with Amey providing information to the radio stations.
- Major landslips on A9 and A85 in NW during August/September.
- Closure of the non-trunk Forth Road bridge for works during the summer.
- Closure of the A898 Erskine Bridge in SW due to severe weather in January 2005.
The use of CCS has increased annually. This indicates its usefulness as a communication tool for the OCs and road users seeking to report and receive answers on issues relating to the network.
Figure 9CCS sign on A95 in NE
M90 Craigend in NE
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