The UK’s Highways Agency has launched a new network control centre that will help maintain and improve roads in central southern England.
The new centre, which includes the existing Hindhead tunnel control room, will be the key point for local operations of 778 miles of strategic carriageway in Hampshire, Berkshire and parts of Surrey, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire and Dorset.
It will work in close cooperation with the agency’s regional control centre in Godstone.
The centre has been launched by EM Highway Services, which is starting its five-year asset support contract to maintain the network. The contract is worth up to £140m per year with incentives.
EM general manager for the area Scott Cooper said: “The movement of the network control centre to Hindhead, to form a combined control centre for the whole area, is just one of a number of initiatives we’ve undertaken in readiness for the start of this new contract.”
Highways Agency contract and performance team leader Guy Berresford said: “The new asset support contract will provide better value for money for the tax payer, with maintenance standards that are outcome-based rather than prescriptive.”
The network includes some of the oldest and busiest roads in the country and has a combination of trunk roads, that have developed over time, and purpose built motorways. These include the M4 that links London and South Wales, and the M3 and A34, which provide a key freight route between Southampton and Portsmouth docks to the Midlands and the North. The A303 and A31 are the two main holiday routes into the south-west.
The network also comprises ten depots across the region to provide the maintenance and winter services, the £371m Hindhead Tunnel, 747 bridges and large culverts, 569 miles of barriers and a total of 1,780 miles of lanes.