Highways England has conceded it needs to 'do something different' if safety on its road network is to continue improving, a conference of highways industry bosses was told.
Stewart Evans, programme lead at Highways England, told the Highways Health and Safety 2016 conference that 'safety is absolutely critical to what we do', adding that 'to achieve our aim and demonstrate our values, we need to do something different’.
He told delegates that the organisation’s safety performance had improved since 2009. But he added: ‘However, it has plateaued and we want to make sure that trajectory continues to improve.’
Highways England has a target to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured (KSI) on its network by 40% by the end of 2020.
But in December the Office of Rail and Road warned that an 8.4% increase in total KSI numbers, albeit with a 13.5% reduction in the number of people killed, ‘represents a risk to hitting the main target'.
Mr Evans told conference delegates: ‘Our aim is that no-one should be harmed when travelling or working on our network.’
He clarified that Highways England aims to get ‘as close as possible to zero harm by 2040’ through a year on year reduction.
Highways England’s five-year health and safety plan has 122 actions, of which 48 are required to be completed by next month. Of these, 15 are complete and 30 on track for completion, Mr Evans told delegates.
He highlighted Highways England’s recent initiative, based on research by TRL, to reduce carriageway crossings by workers by removing the requirement for off side signage for temporary works.
This, he said, had eliminated 99.3% of carriageway crossings.
