Innovative solution to improve road worker safety and reduce disruption to drivers
Highways England’s smart motorway schemes are reliant on technology such as Advanced Motorway Indicators (AMIs) to deliver expected benefits. However, a number of challenges are faced when these require maintenance and with the continued roll out of smart motorways these will become even more significant. The Maintenance Assistance Vehicle (MAV) provides an innovative, end-to- end solution to undertake routine maintenance and servicing of AMIs in a safe manner, while also minimising disruption to drivers.
Issue
Currently, 1800 gantries and 3740 AMIs are used to support the smart motorway network. Evidence suggests that AMIs, which are essential for smart motorway schemes, have relatively high fault rates and require regular maintenance to ensure effective operation. Accessing gantry mounted technology is time consuming, resource intensive and disruptive to road users since any maintenance must be carried out under lane or entire motorway closures. This can increase both maintenance and traffic management costs, as well as the rate of disruption to the economy. Smart motorways require AMIs to function efficiently as lanes cannot be closed or speed limits implemented when the equipment is faulty. Highways England required a solution to meet the key challenges of improving safety for maintenance engineers while reducing the time to repair AMIs, ultimately resulting in less disruption to drivers.
Solution
Mott MacDonald was appointed in August 2012 to develop a specialised vehicle to assist with the maintenance of gantry mounted equipment, specifically AMIs. After an initial scoping study, the innovative concept of adapting an aircraft ground support vehicle to undertake maintenance activities was identified. To deliver the project, Mott MacDonald collaborated with AMI manufacturers, Costain and the specialist vehicle manufacturer Emtek Services. The work included the adaptation of the vehicle together with the additional equipment needed for the intended tasks. New trolleys were designed and constructed for use within the MAV that could be used for storage. This would reduce the handling effort in loading and moving the AMIs, while lowering the likelihood of possible damage.
Giving
mainten-ance engineers a lift – The MAV (photographed during trialling)
improves road worker safety and reduces AMI swap out times.
The project began with a low fidelity testing phase which used a standard freight container and forklift truck. An AMI mounting frame was manufactured and placed on a forklift truck so that it could raise or lower a container where the engineers could work. This phase identified features which needed to be accommodated into the subsequent design.
An extensive period of process development and specification review was undertaken prior to the production of the prototype. A human factors specialist was also brought in to make sure that the operation of the MAV is as efficient as possible. This, along with advice from other specialists such as the Health and Safety Executive, formed the specifications incorporated into the final vehicle design. To understand the requirement from the outset, the specialist manufacturer was involved in the low fidelity testing. Challenges such as moving and securing the AMIs within the vehicle were addressed, together with the use of a MAV-mounted crane to assist with lifting. Off-road testing was used to identify operational enhancements that could be used by Highways England in the future.
Outcome
Testing demonstrated that the MAV not only improved safety for maintenance engineers, but also reduced the time needed to swap out AMIs from 40 minutes to just 18. Overall the MAV requires less resources to complete the same activities.
At present, swapping AMIs requires engineers to work at heights near live traffic. The MAV reduces associated traffic management requirements and in turn, maintenance staff exposure to works near moving vehicles, thus contributing to Highways England’s Aiming for Zero safety goal.
“Technology has an important role in improving road worker and road user safety and this concept provides an opportunity to not only do this but at the same time reduce disruption on our roads by completing gantry maintenance in less time, and reducing the number of lanes closed to carry out such a task.” Jeremy Bird, head of health and safety for Highways England. [1]
The project completes in early 2017 and has identified:
- Improved road worker safety;
- 55% reduction in swap out times;
- Reduced traffic management activities;
- Further enhancements allowing the MAV to service additional gantry and road side equipment including HADECS speed cameras, hard shoulder CCTV cameras and drainage clearance, adding further value to its usage;
- Widespread use of the vehicles across the network could potentially save £4M a year.
John Turner, Project Director,
Mott MacDonald
Mott MacDonald
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