The process of fitting out new vehicles for the fleet of the road marking specialist WJ Group hit a peak in 2014 with one truck entering service every two weeks.
This year the firm’s capital expenditure is planned to provide another 20 light and heavy goods vehicles equipped for temporary and permanent lining duties as WJ ramps up its resources.
This is to cope with a growing workload and in anticipation of a bigger hike in demand for road marking as Highways England’s investment strategy gets going in earnest.
The fleet expansion is also about modernising WJ’s equipment, as part of the firm’s investment plan to give an uplift to research and development, innovation and professionalism in road marking.
One industry initiative WJ is getting behind at present is the Institute of Highway Engineers’(IHE) efforts to develop a new professional accreditation for roadwork operatives.
‘We are hopeful that all of our operatives will be able to obtain some form of qualification and gain membership of an institute such as IHE. This is just part of our efforts to lift perceptions of the road marking industry,’ says WJ South managing director Paul Aldridge.
‘We’re a very professional business. How we recruit and train operatives to build a skilled labour force is equally as important as acquiring the right plant and equipment for the coming uplift in investment from Highways England.’
Earlier this year, WJ Group announced a consolidation of a number of the company’s brands under the WJ banner.
Overall the business now consists of WJ North operating out of Stoke and Elland in West Yorkshire, WJ South out of Milton Keynes and London, WJ South West in Taunton and WJ Products also based in Milton Keynes.
In 2014/15, WJ recorded a turnover figure in excess of £40m, ranking the company as arguably the largest UK road marking contractor for national and local road networks. The firm holds long-term road marking contracts with a list of clients including four London boroughs, Transport for London’s LoHAC South alliance, 13 other county highway authorities in England and four of Highways England’s motorway and trunk road areas.
Furthermore, there are the temporary road studs and both temporary and permanent lining work that WJ teams carry out for discrete projects. WJ is a major player at the Tier Two level of the supply chain.
The £15.2bn of capital and resource spending promised for Highways England up to 2021 presents a ‘marvelous opportunity’ for the industry, Mr Aldridge says.
’The strategic highways market is already starting to ramp up enormously, vastly more than it was a year or so ago. The local authority maintenance market is difficult as budgets are either static or shrinking and still coming under a lot of pressure, but we are seeing a big hike in demand overall.’
This increase in workload and projected funding is giving WJ confidence to invest. According to Mr Aldridge, the firm is spending about 10% of its turnover on new equipment and continuously upgrading its existing fleet with operational safety enhancements.
These include relatively simple changes to road marking vehicles, such as raised side panels, high level hand rails, steps for access onto trucks and a safety cut out system on preheaters.
‘Overall these initiatives have contributed to a 50% reduction in our accident and incident rate over the last three years,’ says WJ Group’s HSE manager Craig Williams.
All new vehicles are also being fitted with blind spot cameras, mirrors and cyclist detection sensors, which are linked to audible alert equipment in vehicle cabs. WJ is a bronze member of FORS, the Freight Operator Recognition Scheme, which was established by TfL in London and is now moving out to other areas.
‘We have evolved our own design and build engineering division in Elland and Stoke, to design out risk and continuously build in new safety features, so the standard of our vehicles and operational safety is improving all the time,’ says WJ engineering director Mark Fawcett.
The company now has 141 trucks in total, ranging from simple hand screen vehicles up to sprayers and mobile multi-task machines.
‘This is all about continuous improvement. Over the years we’ve taken something that was a basic standard vehicle and developed it to become a very specialised piece of kit. It gives us a big advantage, being able to manufacture our own equipment, and include new safety features into our vehicles straight away,’ Mr Aldridge says.
Further safety developments have included fitting of low level gas and air taps to prevent the necessity of climbing onto vehicles. Keyless ignition systems have also been retrofitted to all WJ trucks after a highways operative was killed as a vehicle was being stolen from a roadworks site.
‘Our trucks have to be left running to operate white lining plant and equipment, but their engines will now cut out automatically if anyone puts their foot on the accelerator without applying a key card. We were able to get this fitted to all of our trucks within six weeks,’ says Mr Aldridge.
These safety improvements come at a financial cost, but are seen as a vital part of the overall effort to raise industry standards and professionalism. ‘Ultimately it’s what our clients are looking for,’Mr Aldridge adds.
The safety record of the highways industry has improved considerably as a whole. Traffic management procedures have got a lot better. But road maintenance activities, particularly road marking work using hot thermoplastic materials at night in restricted road closures, remain relatively high risk and need to be managed well, Mr Aldridge says.
‘Now there is the real expectation of a dramatic increase in workload, the industry has got to gear up and deliver. There is a clear message of the need for safety. A big rise in volume of work cannot result in a step up in lost time accidents,’ he adds.
‘We’ve also got to be more efficient. Among other things Highways England is seeking to increase volumes of materials that can be laid in road surfacing projects, maximising the productivity of shifts during set periods of lane closures. This needs the whole supply chain on board and attention to safety is absolutely critical for making it a success.’
WJ has recently been involved in a ‘one thousand tonne challenge’ project carried out by Highways England and Kier Strategic Highways with a select group of supply chain partners. The net outcome, says Mr Aldridge, was a 49% improvement in use of paving resources in a typical closure and a 25% saving in programme time.
‘Our input to this was as part of the effort to improve interaction and coordination between different processes, to ensure a smooth transition from surfacing to temporary and permanent white lining,’ he says.
Typically, what road marking contractors like WJ need is large areas of work to go at without disruption or hold ups, so it's important to have good
