Highways England continue to capitalise on 5 years of successful partnership with Kier Highways in its maintenance contract in the South East (Area 3) and West Midlands (Area 9) through extended contracts to the maximum 8-year term, seeking to bring in the benefits offered by their new Asset Delivery contract model for the 3-year extension. The new Progressive Asset Delivery (PAD) approach includes HE taking on the asset management function itself. To make this a success a new model of advanced collaboration was required along with evolved alliance model development to explore improved mechanisms across 13 key objectives, this project one of them.
The innovative SRN Alliance system was a step change for all involved with all 24 organisations coming together between July-November 2018 to develop including content, defining the alliance and ways of working, including SMEs. The system was developed as a ‘plug and play’ system built against the principles of ISO44001: Collaborative Working Relationships standard to establish a framework that can be adopted by any community including non-highways and overseas. This approach enabled a complete alignment of objectives resulting in improved problem solving, increased trust, enhanced innovation, better stakeholder satisfaction, joint training programs, sharing best practice and joint governance. The programme also enabled alliance partners to achieve ISO 44001 certification at a fraction of the cost and time expected.
Judges Comments
This entry took an innovative approach to enabling 24 suppliers across 2 Highways England delivery areas to achieve accreditation to ISO44001 in order to ensure a collaborative approach to meeting the needs of highway users. It has set a model for others to follow in the sector.
Hertfordshire CC and Essex CC are currently in the process of rolling out their respective LED projects, which jointly amounts to around 250,000 street lighting points.
Integral to implementation, both Councils deployed Central Management Systems to facilitate the remote monitoring and management of faults on the networks
development and implementation of variable lighting strategies and recognised the potential to expand the use of the system across wider elements of highway infrastructure.
Both Councils worked collaboratively, starting in early 2018, initially to understand the potential in the Smart technology, and subsequently collaborated with Telensa and LINC (specialist lighting division: Ringway and Ringway Jacobs) to pilot UK innovation in Smart City Services to enable a full and comprehensive evaluation of the robustness, practicality and affordability of the different elements of the Smart technology comprising:
Gully (drain), Wind speed, Air quality, Waste bin and Adaptive lighting / traffic monitoring and analytics.
The feedback regarding the robustness from
the on-site performance and real-time dashboard data has been extremely positive.
The benefits of the collaborative approach have been significant and formed a robust platform on which to mobilise future Smart Cities Services. This is a positive evolution regarding future transport, highways, connectivity and Smart mobility.
Judges Comments
This entry has huge potential for future development and the detailed dialogue carried out between the council and service providers and providers is a model for the adoption of future smart technologies.
The Collaborative Learning Circle (CLC) is an industry first - a professional Learning and Development (L&D) forum, which breaks down the silos that exist across the highways industry to help shape the future through collaboration and innovation.
For the first time, the CLC brings together the client, service delivery provider, those who would traditionally be described as competitors, supply chain and professional industry bodies to provide an integrated L&D package, bringing value to all. All parties are represented on the CLC Board and bring different views, opinions and ideas, making the CLC a collaboration of equals.
CLC’s core values:
Judges Comments
Bringing together clients and delivery providers, this entry demonstrates a firm commitment to embedding intelligent collaboration into the industry as a whole. The CLC is an important step forward in improving the industry as a whole.
The A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme involves upgrading a 21-mile length of strategic highway and the widening of a 2-mile stretch of the A1 in Cambridgeshire. It is one of the four major projects which comprise Highways England’s £8bn Complex Infrastructure Programme (CIP).
The CIP aims for delivery teams to share learning between projects, building the expertise and knowledge to deliver nationally important infrastructure to the highest standards possible. To deliver the cost and efficiency savings Highways England expects, a true collaboration agreement was needed, so the A14 Integrated Delivery Team (IDT), a joint venture between Costain, Skanska, Balfour Beatty and Atkins-Jacobs was formed.
External recognition of the high standard of collaboration on the project is evidenced by our recent ISO44001 accreditation. We are the first standalone project to receive this accreditation, Collaborative Working (ICW) gave this endorsement, “If you want to see collaboration in action, visit the A14”
Our submission describes the development and success of the IDT’s collaboration to date.
Judges Comments
This entry is commended for the quality of its collaboration across different levels of the business and supply chain. This was particularly evident in the handling of the liquidation of a joint venture partner and the support for team members affected.
The vision set out for Connecting Leeds is to deliver a transformational stepchange in the transport network and connectivity in Leeds and the wider region. This will be achieved through improvements to road, rail, bus, park and ride, cycling and walking services and infrastructure, reducing congestion and improving air quality and accessibility in Leeds.
A major focus of the investment is to upgrade the city’s bus infrastructure. Within 10 years Leeds City Council, along with their partners, wish to double the current 250,000 bus trips made in the city per day. Proposals range from extending existing successful Park & Ride sites, two new Park & Ride sites, new bus lanes, junction improvements and traffic signal upgrades. Five key bus routes into the city centre will be upgraded as part of the programme within the next two years.
The city’s major bus operators are supporting the proposals as part of a wider plan to make bus travel the region more reliable, easier to use, customer focused and better for the environment. First Leeds have committed to investing £71m to provide 284 new state of the art buses for its Leeds fleet in time for the first phase of construction reaching completion.
Judges Comments
This entry is commended for its excellent consultation process, well-planned communications and its commitment to reaching under-served groups. Involving over 35,000 residents, workers and employees should be considered a major success.
Since 2015, the Amey Arup team working on various projects under Highways England’s Smart Motorway Programme (SMP) have developed and embedded effective collaborative working practices across all schemes.
The first Amey Arup SMP project, M1 J23a-25, became a flagship scheme for collaborative behaviours, demonstrating collaborative ways of working at both a behavioural and performance level.
The Amey Arup and Highways England team members formed a united ‘badgeless’ culture, role modelling a collaborative working style through open communication. To help foster these relationships, an overall methodology has since been developed and executed with great success.
The methodology is bespoke to the programme and includes signing up to a team charter to raise awareness of the collaborative values and behaviours required and to provide visible commitment from the leadership team. The team work hard to expose new members to the approach, ensuring continuity and consistency of the approach going forward.
The methodology provides the foundation for consistent best practice across all projects, creating efficiencies and encouraging issues to be raised and managed. The team relationship has greatly benefitted from this approach, now noticeably working in a more ‘one team’ environment which has become business as usual.
Judges Comments
The judges commend this substantive piece of work that takes a very structured approach to collaboration and has excellent potential across a wide programme of work.
