Two new reports have been released by TRL which should be of significant interest to Transport Network readers.
Firstly, a study for the Scottish Road Works Commissioner (SRWC) has a look at whether long-term damage has been caused by utility reinstatement work.
The report looked at 127 reinstatement in four local authority areas across the spectrum of populated environments – city, urban, semi-urban and rural.
It analysed whether compliant reinstatements were causing long-term damage to the carriageway – and the effect on adjacent pavements.
The report controversially concludes that utility reinstatements do cause long-term damage to roads and recommends greater care and supervision is needed in the construction of reinstatement edge joints - and suggests a change of detail that would make improvements to joints in the future.
Read it here
The second study takes a look at the fall-off in fatalities on UK roads in the period between 2007 and 2010.
As central government has stopped monitoring such data, Surrey CC decided to commission TRL to analyse data.
The relevant datasets for the period from 2000 to 2010 have been analysed to investigate this major reduction, including a wide selection of exposure data.
It revealed a reduction in HGV and young male traffic assisted in the decline of fatalities – only being offset by cycling. Also, car safety improvements helped, but did not affect the overall reduction in fatalities.
The recession also had an impact on figures – as there was less speeding and drink-driving as a result of the socio-economic climate – and there was limited evidence that the progressively colder winter weather had an impact, as people drove more cautiously during that time.
See the full report here.
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