SAFETY PROJECT

SafetyCam wins customer praise

Use on diversion reduces community impact

SafetyCam was deployed for 7 weeks in the summer by Tarmac during a scheme on the A14 between junctions 58 and 62 near Felixstowe in National Highways’ East Region.

The scheme involved full overnight road closures of the A14 for carriageway resurfacing. Being on a peninsula, there are no alternative routes on the strategic road network, so the diversion of all the trunk road traffic was onto a local diversion through the nearby village of Trimley St Martin.

Trimley St Martin is home to around 900 houses with a population of 1,950 residents, with the highest proportion falling into the 45-59 age bracket. The road through the village is narrow with a 30mph speed limit, and there are multiple residential and commercial properties accessing directly onto the road.

During the time on the diversion, SafetyCam recorded 43,000 vehicles travelling through the village overnight.  99.85% of which was within the 30mph speed limit.

confidence within the local community

During planning for the scheme it was identified that additional measures on the diversion through Trimley St Martin would be beneficial and align with National Highways’ Customer Service Strategic Plan:

• Our customers trust us.
• Our customers know we care.
• We all contribute to customer service.

SafetyCam was selected for it’s visual deterrent and recording capability to build confidence with the local community that the additional traffic travelling through the village was being proactively managed.

SafetyCam also provided the agility to move around the diversion and with inbuilt welfare facilities there was no need for the van to leave the diversion unmonitored during the night time closures.

Benefits

Safety
  • On average 1,350 vehicles per night used the diversion through Trimley St Martin between 9pm in the evening and either 4am or 5am in the morning, with 45% of these vehicles being HGVs. This peaked at over 2,900 vehicles on Tuesday 11 August.
  • Pushing this volume of traffic onto a local route increased the road safety risk for all, including local road users, pedestrians and cyclists. Especially given that local users would not be familiar interacting with that volume of vehicles at that time of night, and diverted strategic road network (SRN) drivers might still have a tendency to default to driving behaviours when traveling on the SRN.
  • The deployment of SafetyCam on the route helped improve safety for all road users, especially vulnerable road users.
Customer Service
  • Our customers aren’t just road users. Engaging with local communities and listening to their feedback provides opportunities to adapt for everyone’s benefit, especially during local diversions.
  • During 7 weeks on this diversion, SafetyCam recorded 43,000 vehicles travelling through the village overnight.
  • SafetyCam was a major contributor in maintaining 99.85% of diverted SRN traffic within the 30mph speed limit.
  • On 15 night shifts, not a single vehicle was recorded above the 30mph speed limit through Trimley St Martin.
  • Real time monitoring of the diversion using Safety Cam also provided resilience around journey time certainty allowing any out of the ordinary delays on the diversion to be quickly identified.
Delivery
  • Using SafetyCam on the diversion route brought added confidence for the project team that the diverted traffic was being proactively monitored, and positive feedback from customers (see opposite) supported this approach. This allowed the resurfacing work on the A14 to continue with full overnight closures.
  • This provided two key delivery benefits providing opportunity to leverage additional efficiencies to support HE’s RIS2 Efficiency KPI target:
    • The full closures provided the environment to maximise planing and laying productivity on the mainline.
    • Full closure traffic management was quicker to deploy providing increased working windows per shift.