5 Lifecycle Planning

5 Lifecycle Planning

5.1 Long-Term Approach to Managing Assets

A lifecycle plan is defined as a long-term strategy for managing an asset, or group of similar assets, with the aim of providing the required levels of service while minimising whole life costs.

Our asset management strategy sets out how we intend to manage the trunk road network in order to deliver a service that aligns to our delivery priorities and the Scottish Government’s strategic objectives. Key to achieving this is how we approach the long-term management of the assets. By adopting a lifecycle planning approach we are able to focus on the long-term needs of our three main asset types:

• carriageways;
• structures; and
• ancillary assets.

Individual lifecycle plans, for carriageways, structures and ancillary assets, represent the output of our lifecycle planning process. These plans are at the core of our approach to trunk road asset management planning and contain the detail that enables asset management practices, such as long-term cost projection, performance management and risk management to be applied consistently.

This chapter describes asset lifecycle activities that are common to all three asset groups. Lifecycle activities that are specific to each asset group are described in Appendices A to C. We will continue to develop the RAMP to ensure that it is consistent across further asset groups, in particular focusing on Intelligent Transport System (ITS) assets.

5.2 Inspections and Surveys

We specify requirements for regular surveys and inspections to ensure that the network is safe and fit for purpose, and to provide appropriate information to support maintenance decisions.

Inventory Surveys

Good quality information is fundamental for asset management. A detailed trunk road inventory is an essential prerequisite of establishing a cost effective and adequate maintenance regime. It is the foundation on which asset management is built and when analysed in combination with other data, provides crucial decision support information.

In 2011 we commissioned an independent audit of our inventory data, which highlighted issues with the accuracy and completeness of the data being maintained. As a result, in 2012 we commissioned a spatially referenced video survey to ensure that our Operating Companies were given a more accurate inventory dataset to build upon and maintain throughout the life of their contract.

The Operating Companies are responsible for validating and updating inventory items during the first annual period of the contract and for maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the inventory data thereafter in line with the requirements of the Transport Scotland Trunk Road Inventory Manual. The manual supports the Operating Company’s inspection team in collecting high quality inventory data in a consistent and repeatable manner. It describes the inventory data to be collected/updated, the conventions to be adopted, and provides clear instructions and photographs.

Safety and Serviceability Inspections

In accordance with recognised good practice, our inspection regime is designed to ensure the trunk road network is safe for use and fit for purpose; and to provide the data required to support asset maintenance planning and management. The inspection regimes summarised below are specified in Schedule 7: Part 1 of the Operating Company contracts (www.transportscotland.gov.uk/road/maintenance/operating-companies). These regimes are based on past experience, recognised good practice and risk assessment. 

Our Operating Companies are required to carry out Safety Inspections, Safety Patrols, night time Safety Patrols, Detailed Inspections and Condition Surveys. All are carried out using GPS enabled mobile devices running customised software. The mobile devices and software ensure that information is accurately located, validated and directly entered into our Integrated Roads Information System (IRIS). Information relating to urgent safety defects will immediately enter the workflow to ensure that they are promptly dealt with. All data remains in the system with an audit trail and is readily available to identify the need for maintenance and to justify schemes on a priority basis.

Safety Inspections are walked visual inspections (or from a slow-moving vehicle) designed to identify defects likely to create a danger to the public and therefore require immediate or urgent attention (Category 1 defects). They are undertaken at intervals not exceeding seven days on all trunk roads.

Safety Patrols are visual inspections from a slow-moving vehicle designed to supplement Safety Inspections by providing a more frequent surveillance of the road network to identify serious defects. They are undertaken on selected trunk roads at intervals not exceeding seven days midway between Safety Inspections.

Night time Safety Patrols of illuminated signs, illuminated bollards and lighting points (including but not limited to road lighting, flood lighting, underpass lighting, architectural lighting, navigational lighting, pedestrian lighting, bus shelter lighting and festive lighting) are undertaken to ensure all assets which provide light have the correct visibility. They are carried out at intervals not exceeding 14 days from 1 October to 31 March and at intervals not exceeding 28 days from 1 April to 30 September. 

Detailed Inspections are walked visual inspections designed primarily to establish programmes of routine maintenance tasks not requiring urgent attention (Category 2 defects). The frequency of inspection varies according to the asset but are generally undertaken annually on all trunk roads (or biennially if the asset is within or adjacent to a central reserve on a motorway or dual carriageway and requires a lane occupation).

Additional guidance on safety and detailed inspections is provided in Transport Scotland’s Trunk Road Inspection Manual which sets out the procedure for undertaking safety and detailed inspections, and provides guidance on inspection frequencies and the types of defects to be recorded in the Asset Management System described in Section 8. Where appropriate, examples of defects that may constitute a safety risk are given for each asset type. However, the manual does not contain an exhaustive compendium of defects and the Operating Company is required to adhere to the principles of a system of defect risk assessment as set out in Chapter 9 of Well Maintained Highways – Code of Practice for Highway Maintenance (www.ukroadsliaisongroup.org/en/utilities/document-summary). Each Operating Company is required to provide clear guidance and training to their employees in the conduct of safety inspections.

Condition Surveys are walked visual survey introduced in 2013/14 and used to grade the condition of selected ancillary road assets (e.g. signs, footways and road markings). The surveys are generally undertaken annually on all trunk roads alongside Detailed Inspections. Guidance on the surveys is provided in Transport Scotland’s Trunk Road Condition Manual which details the procedures for rating the condition of assets according to five levels of service or condition categories. This information will be used to inform maintenance strategies and assess how these assets are performing over time. 

The data will also greatly assist in the identification and prioritisation of renewal schemes for ancillary assets. Condition data for assets such as safety fences and line markings can be mapped alongside carriageway and structures data to support the development of schemes on different assets at the same location.

5.3 Routine and Cyclic Maintenance

Routine and cyclic service operations include cyclic, reactive and planned activities that enable us to keep the trunk road network safe and serviceable, and are needed to preserve the value of the asset. These activities include reactive repairs and winter, flood and emergency responses but exclude preventative and programmed renewals maintenance. Information from routine activities, however, makes an important contribution to the planning of these other works. The three main types of activity are:

• Cyclic maintenance.
• Reactive and planned routine maintenance.
• Winter Maintenance.

Full details of the routine and cyclic maintenance requirements are provided in Schedule 7: Part 1 and Part 2 of the Operating Company contracts and summarised below.

Cyclic Maintenance

Cyclic maintenance is undertaken at regular intervals to maintain the safety, condition and functionality of an asset and reduce the need for other, normally more expensive, maintenance. Examples of cyclic activities include cutting of vegetation, cleaning of drainage systems, replacement of lighting lamps, and litter picking. 

Reactive and Planned Routine Maintenance

Reactive maintenance covers a range of unplanned activities that may arise on the trunk road network, including essential maintenance to fix a defect. When a defect has been identified, normally through the safety and detailed inspections outlined in Section 5.2, the Operating Company is required to take account of contract requirements, applicable regulations and engineering judgement in deciding when remedial action will be necessary, and to make recommendations on the type of work required. There are two categories of defect with different response times, namely Category 1 and Category 2.

• Category 1 Defects – are corrected or made safe at the time of inspection if reasonably practicable. In this context, making safe may constitute displaying warning notices/signs, coning off or fencing to protect the public from the defect. If it is not possible to correct or make safe the defect at the time of inspection, repairs of a temporary or permanent nature are carried out as soon as possible and no later than:
• 06:00 on the day following identification of the Category 1 Defect on carriageways; or
• within 24 hours of identification for all other Category 1 Defects.

Where a temporary repair has been carried out, the deferred permanent repair period for the following defect types shall be:

• 28 days for carriageway surface;
• 56 days for bridge parapets; or
• all other Category 1 Defects repaired permanently within the specific period referred to in Schedule 7 Part 1 of the Transport Scotland Operating Company Contract, or no later than 28 days after identification where no specific period is stated.

Category 1 defects will often need to be dealt with immediately due to the high risk to public safety or risk of further rapid deterioration. Examples include potholes, flooding, vandalism, vehicle impacts, and diesel/oil spills.

• Category 2 Defects – all other defects, that is, following a risk assessment, are deemed not to represent an immediate or imminent hazard or risk of short-term structural deterioration. Response times to Category 2 defects are not specified and are undertaken within a planned programme of works and scheduled on a needs basis.

Winter Maintenance

Transport Scotland undertakes steps it considers reasonable to prevent snow and ice endangering the safe passage of pedestrians and vehicles on the trunk road network. These services are provided by the Operating Companies in accordance with contract requirements. 

Each Operating Company will undertake a ‘snow desk’ winter scenario exercise at the start of the winter period, to test and challenge the robustness of their Winter Service Plans to the full. When conditions require, roads are salted to prevent ice forming and are ploughed to clear snow. From 1 October to 15 May, a 24-hour dedicated winter maintenance service operates on all Scotland’s trunk roads. From 1 November to 31 March, routes most at risk from winter conditions are patrolled. Patrols operate from early morning through to the end of the morning peak period and at other times of the day when severe wintry weather is forecast. Our trunk road Operating Companies have winter control rooms that operate 24/7, and constantly review conditions and deploy necessary resources.

Together Transport Scotland and our Operating Companies have made a significant investment in our winter maintenance equipment including the roll-out of larger gritters with the ability to carry more salt supplies, and other innovative equipment including icebreakers from Scandinavia, inverted V-ploughs and footway snow blowers.

During severe weather conditions, we endeavour to keep the public informed in a variety of ways, including the Traffic Scotland website (which is also available through mobile telephone applications), our Traffic Scotland Customer Care Line (0800 028 1414), roadside electronic variable message signs (VMS), twitter and radio travel information broadcast.

Further details on winter maintenance can be found at: www.transportscotland.gov.uk/road/winter-service-ready-winter-and-severe-weather

5.4 Asset Investment Planning

Maintaining the trunk road network in a good condition helps to provide faster and more reliable journeys which improve opportunities for business, leisure and tourism. It also aids Scotland’s move towards a low carbon economy by improving traffic flows and avoiding stop-start travelling conditions; and ensures regions and individuals are well connected to economic opportunities, creating a more cohesive Scotland with increased social equity.

A long-term look ahead can provide visibility of any significant increases or decreases in funding needs and annual work volumes. We regularly identify, develop and analyse a number of different investment scenarios for each of our major asset types, including the following:

• the budget required to maintain current condition both now and in the future;
• the budget required to achieve optimum condition targets;
• the forward work plan associated with current levels of investment; and
• the impact of maintaining current levels of investment on future network condition.

Based on our budgets and asset management objectives identified from our policy and strategy, the following sections present two such scenarios for each asset type.

Carriageways

We have developed a financial model which we use for lifecycle planning on carriageways. This model has been specifically developed to perform predictive modelling, utilising existing survey data, to allow us to estimate the future maintenance requirements over a number of years for differing levels of funding or different road condition targets. The model has been used to assess the following scenarios:

• Scenario 1: Determine the budget required to maintain the trunk road network in its current condition (87% in good or fair structural condition). 
• Scenario 2: Determine the volume of work that can be undertaken with the current expenditure on structural maintenance being approximately £34.5m per annum.

The model uses information from the routine road condition surveys that we undertake to assess the condition of our network. These include:

• SCANNER traffic speed surveys to measure surface condition covering 50% of the road network annually to identify surface characteristics and defects, which would be visible to road users;
• Deflectograph surveys on one fifth of the network annually to measure structural condition, which is reported as the remaining or ‘residual life’ of the road, in order to maintain engineering integrity. Structural condition surveys assess the condition of all layers in the road construction and the defects are not always visible to road users. 

The carriageway condition for each road type is expressed as a combined index termed the Transport Scotland Road Condition Index (TS RCI). The TS RCI takes account of both the surface and structural (full depth) condition of each individual road type. The structural condition carries a relatively high weighting reflecting the importance of maintaining engineering integrity on the trunk roads and motorways, which carry high traffic flows and a high proportion of heavy goods vehicles. The condition of our carriageways is categorised using a three point condition banding; good, fair or poor.

Our network is diverse with significant variations in traffic ranging from urban motorways to rural single carriageway roads. Hence each road type varies in the rate of deterioration, the defects that occur, when it will require maintenance and the type of maintenance required. Consequently, in order to ensure a well maintained trunk road network we have adopted different maintenance targets for motorways, dual and single carriageways.

Structures

We are developing a computerised model to inform our lifecycle planning requirements for structures and are using it to assess the following scenarios:

• Scenario 1: Determine the budget required to maintain the trunk road structures stock at current condition levels.
• Scenario 2: Determine the volume of work that can be undertaken with the current expenditure on structural maintenance being approximately £24.5m per annum.

In 2009/10 we adopted the Bridge Condition Index (BCI) inspection standard which is calculated from General and Principle Inspection data and allows us to analyse and trend condition information. This is a valuable tool in helping us determine overall deterioration rates and sits alongside the planned inspection regimes, which more accurately determine actual defects, deterioration and remedial works. From these inspections the BCI is determined. The following condition indicators are calculated for each structure:

• BCI_av: The average BCI for a structure taking into account the condition of all structural elements on the structure. The weighted average of the individual BCI_av scores provides an overview of the average stock condition (SSCI_av).
• BCI_crit: The condition score of the load bearing element which is in worst condition, this score provides an indication of the criticality of the structure with regards to the load bearing capacity. The weighted average of the BCI_crit scores provides an indication of the criticality of the stock with regards to load carrying capacity (SSCI_crit).

The condition of our structures is categorised using a five point condition banding that ranges from excellent to very poor. Based on the defects recorded in the condition inspection surveys, a workbank of treatments is created for structures and the maintenance target for these structures is to be defect free.

Our investment scenarios are then run from this information, and the outcomes of the planned inspections, with works being prioritised based on condition and importance.

Ancillary Assets

In this version of the RAMP ancillary assets cover all trunk road asset types with the exception of the carriageway and road structures. Our ancillary asset decision support tool is a customised tool that has been developed so that we can undertake effective lifecycle planning analysis for our ancillary assets. The model has been used to assess the following scenarios:

• Scenario 1: Determine the budget required to replace all ancillary assets which have been assessed as being in very poor condition, beyond economic repair and at the end of their serviceable life.
• Scenario 2: Determine the volume of work that can be undertaken with the current expenditure on ancillary assets being approximately £11m per annum.

In order to ensure that our ancillary assets are maintained to the highest standards, and to ensure they are safe for use and fit for purpose, it is essential that their visual and structural condition are reviewed and monitored on a regular basis. This responsibility rests with our Operating Companies who are required to undertake Condition Inspections as part of the 4G Operating Company Contract. Additional guidance is provided in our Trunk Road Condition Manual, which details the procedures for categorising selected ancillary assets (e.g. signs, footways and road markings) by the severity of their defects according to five levels of service or condition categories.

This information is then fed into our ancillary assets decision support tool and is used to inform maintenance strategies and assess how these assets are performing over time, for any defined scenario.

5.5 Summary of Lifecycle Plans

Carriageways

	Details	Commentary
Our Asset		The total length of the trunk road network is 3,429 route km.
Customer		Satisfaction with the condition of trunk road surfaces has reached its highest level since 2009, at 45% (an increase of 5% since 2014). Reflecting this, the proportion of respondents dissatisfied with road surfaces has decreased, from 47% in 2014 to 40% in 2015. For the first time since 2009, a higher proportion of respondents were satisfied than dissatisfied.
Current Condition		Currently 87% of trunk road carriageways are in good or fair condition.
Historical Condition		The condition of trunk road carriageways has declined from 89% in 2010/11 to 87% in 2014/15.
Historic Investment		Spend on roads’ structural maintenance has ranged from £26m per annum to £52m per annum.
Future Investment		An average investment of £66m per annum (excluding inflation) would be required to maintain the condition of carriageways at their current level (87% good or fair) over the next 10 years. The 2015/16 budget is approximately £34.5m.
Indicative Forward Work Plan		Assuming that funding will remain at 2015/16 levels (£34.5m per annum), an estimated 3,729 lane-km of carriageways will be reconstructed, strengthened or resurfaced (789, 1,052 and 1,888 lane-km respectively) over the next 10 years.
Discussion	We will continue to implement our Roads Structural Maintenance Strategy and work with our supply chain to make best use of available resources. Implementation of this strategy, alongside other efficiency saving initiatives and asset management improvements will enable us to continue to manage trunk road carriageways in a safe and serviceable condition.

Structures

	Details	Commentary
Our Asset		The total number of structures is held within our Integrated Roads Information System (IRIS). We currently have 1,874 bridges and footbridges, and 2,347 other structures.
Current Condition		The majority of trunk road structures have a BCI average condition rating of excellent or good (79%). The SSCIav score for the structures stock is 86%.
		The majority of trunk road structures currently have a BCI critical element condition rating of excellent or good (61%). The SSCIcrit score for the structures stock is 76%.
Historical Condition		The percentage of structures in poor or very poor BCI average condition has remained relatively stable, increasing from 2% in 2010/11 to 3% in 2014/15. The percentage of structures with poor or very poor critical element condition has increased from 14% to 18%.
Historic Investment		Spend on maintenance of trunk road structures has ranged from £15m per annum to £30m per annum.
Future Investment		An average investment of £55m per annum (excluding inflation) would be required to maintain the condition of the structures stock at their current level over the next 10 years. The 2015/16 budget is approximately £24.5m.
Indicative Forward Work Plan		Assuming that funding will remain at 2015/16 levels (£24.5m per annum), an estimated 50,000m of bearings, joints, drainage or parapets will be maintained or replaced over the next 10 years. Approximately 240,000m2 of concrete repairs, waterproofing, and finishes will also be undertaken.
Discussion	We will continue to develop and implement our strategy for managing trunk road structures and work with our supply chain to make best use of available resources. This, alongside other efficiency saving initiatives and asset management improvements, will enable us to continue to manage trunk road structures in a safe and serviceable condition.

Ancillary Assets

	Details	Commentary
Our Asset		The total number of ancillary assets is held within our Integrated Roads Information System (IRIS). We currently have 307,935 individual point assets (e.g. lighting columns) and 81,125 km of continuous assets (e.g. safety barriers).
Customer		Customer perception of those ancillary assets included in the customer survey (signs, road markings, lighting and electronic message boards) have remained mainly positive since 2009. Levels of satisfaction were generally higher than in 2014.
Current Condition		Approximately 41% of ancillary assets are categorised as excellent or good condition. Approximately 18% is categorised as poor or very poor condition.
Historic Investment		Spend on ancillary asset renewals has ranged from approximately £8m per annum to £13m per annum over the last five years.
Future Investment		An average investment of £54m per annum (excluding inflation) is required to replace all ancillary assets that fall into the very poor condition band over the next 10 years. The 2015/16 budget is approximately £11m.
Indicative Forward Work Plan		Assuming that funding will remain at 2015/16 levels (£11m per annum), an estimated 33,400 individual point assets and 9,700 km of continuous assets will be replaced over the next 10 years.
Discussion	We will continue to develop and implement our strategy for managing ancillary assets, and work with our supply chain to make best use of available resources.