Steps needed now to reduce impact of extreme weather on highways, says report

The UK must urgently improve resilience across the highways network to combat more frequent extreme weather events, says a new report from the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT) and the DARe Hub.

Measures are needed now to ensure reliability, requiring tactical futureproofing and maintenance of highways, the report states.

Flooding, higher temperatures, storms, and severe weather are more common and accelerate failures and disruptions, it says.

The report offers guidance in implementing adaptation measures, with case studies revealing how physical interventions that can mitigate the impact of extreme weather on highways. The report shows how preparing road infrastructure now is key to long-term resilience, saving costs, and protecting communities and the economy.

It calls for investment maintaining highways and infrastructure to ensure “continued, efficient use of the network”. Incremental adaptation and proactive maintenance of infrastructure are crucial to improving resilience and meeting decarbonisation goals, it adds.

Among the recommendations are calls for statutory requirements to be issued by road authorities. This would ensure that transport asset owners carry out resilience assessments that help identify vulnerabilities, the authors say. Road authorities should also produce “coherent and consistent guidance” on how to undertake risk assessments on resilience, preventing non-transferable or non-shareable data and practices.

CIHT produced the report in collaboration with DARe, the National Hub for Decarbonised, Adaptable, and Resilient Transport Infrastructures, which brings together UK universities, and diverse industry, government, and civic partners.

Delivering a resilient transport network - Maintaining and future proofing highway infrastructure from extreme weather events.

Stephen Elderkin, Director of Environmental Sustainability, National Highways will be speaking at Climate Resilient Streets on 14 November.