Department for Transport

The UK has seen a road safety gain in 2020.

Researchers from the UK’s Lancaster University will design, fabricate and test systems that generate electricity using piezoelectricity and hydromechanical dynamics from passing vehicles. The electricity produced will be stored in roadside batteries to power street lamps, road signs and air pollution monitors in the town of Aylesbury. There will also be sensors that detect the formation of potholes, according to a statement from the university’s engineering department. In addition, the so-called smart

Funding has been secured in the UK for 18 road improvement schemes intended to cut journey times. These works have been given the go ahead by the Department for Transport. The projects include the Preston western distributor scheme, which will provide a new dual carriageway to reduce congestion in the city, and the 3.5km Stubbington bypass. Seven other schemes will be awarded funding to develop their business cases. These include the A140 Long Stratton Bypass, which will divert traffic away from busier rou

The UK’s Department for Transport is providing £348 million of funding to help improve local roads over the next four years. This funding will be available for local authorities to bid for, allowing them to work on major maintenance projects, as well as on projects that will ease congestion on the UK’s busiest roads. This announcement follows a £6.6 billion investment in local road maintenance in the last five years The funding will be available in two stages for local authorities to bid for in an effort t

A new road safety plan for the UK has been announced. This includes a major package of measures to reduce the number of people killed and injured on roads. The action plan is designed to improve safety for people at every stage of life – from infants in car seats to those with years of driving experience. It includes increased penalties for failing to wear a seatbelt one of 74 measures being considered. Failure to wear a seatbelt could result in penalty points as well as fines, under new plans t

Since 2015 almost a million potholes have been recorded annually by UK local authorities, with the 2016 count reaching 1,088,965, according to an insurance provider. The Insurance Emporium obtained data from 175 local authorities and compared it to the incidence of injury and damage claims made against these authorities by cyclists. During 2017-18, there were 335 pothole damage and injury claims filed against local authorities. Personal and dental injuries to cyclists accounted for 16% of these and d

Ringway Island Roads recently completed a major 12km upgrade to one of the UK’s most iconic roads. The upgrade to the Military Road, on the Isle of Wight in the English channel, is the largest carriageway improvement project delivered in a single scheme by Ringways’ Island Roads division. The project was part of the Isle of Wight’s Highway Improvement Programme which is financed in the main through a grant of €535 million awarded by the UK’s Department for Transport. The section between the villages

A major new expressway project is being planned in the UK to connect the university cities of Oxford and Cambridge. The preferred route for the project has now been announced by the UK’s Department for Transport (DfT). The construction work is likely to cost around €4.58 billion (£4.1 billion). Work to the route will include connecting existing stretches to new sections of dual carriageway. There has been criticism of the project however from the Wildlife Trust, which says that the preferred route will dama

The problem of drink driving is seeing an unwelcome upsurge on Britain’s road network. The latest official data reveals that casualties from drink driving are now on the increase. According to Department for Transport data, there were 9,040 people killed or seriously injured (KSI) as a result of drink driving on the British road network in 2016. Complete figures for 2017 have yet to be compiled but the trend appears to have continued. The KSI figures for 2016 represent a 7% increase over those for 2015 and

Technology groups and agencies have until August 16 to enter the Transport-Technology Research Innovation for International Development (T-TRIID) competition. Under the Applied Research Programme in High Volume Transport (HVT), the competition funds short projects for safer and more efficient transport within low-income countries in Africa and South Asia. The programme is implemented by development and infrastructure agency IMC Worldwide, supported by the Knowledge Transfer Network – a UK agency for p