Highways England’s NOMS Has Potential to Save £7.02 Million per Year

Highways England (HE) is the UK government organization charged with operating, maintaining, and improving England’s Strategic Road Network (SRN). As part of its work, HE manages lane closures across the 4,300 miles of motorways and major trunk roads that make up the network, and its license to operate requires that lane availability does not fall below 97 percent for a rolling year.

Using its Network Occupancy Management System (NOMS), HE aims to reduce the number of lane closure events by 6,000 a month, with the potential to provide a cost savings of GBP 7.02 million per year.

NOMS is a core element of HE’s asset lifecycle information management solution, and has two specific duties: The planning and management of road closure events. Leveraging Bentley technology, NOMS provides its distributed asset management community with the ability to directly access and interrogate planned road closure events across the entire SRN.

In addition to reducing road closures by 3,600 a year, HE expects NOMS to provide significant safety advantages for its workers, eliminating 14,400 hours of challenging nighttime work on the SRN. The reduction in closures is also expected to deliver a positive impact on the environment, saving an estimated 10,824 tons of carbon per year.

NOMS allows HE to share road closure event data with local authorities across the UK, and the traveling public, as well as manage road closure events requests from third parties.

Its direct integration with Bentley’s asset lifecycle information management solution allows the scheduling of operational, maintenance, and scheme activities, and provides, for the first time, all HE’s asset managers with the ability to visualize every planned road closure on a map.

“Bentley's NOMS solution is key to us integrating asset information so that we can share information across the business. This reaps cohesive and comprehensive benefits in collaboration opportunities across the entire business.”

Project Summary

Project

Highways England (HE) is a UK government-owned organization responsible for operating, maintaining, and improving England’s Strategic Road Network (SRN). As part of its work, HE manages lane closures across the 4,300 miles of motorways and major trunk roads that make up the network, costing the country GBP 140.4 million annually. To manage closures more effectively and reduce associated costs, the organization needed a Network Occupancy Management System (NOMS) to integrate with all its asset lifecycle information. Using the solution, HE aims to reduce the number of lane closure events by 6,000 a month, optimizing stakeholder collaboration and communication across the business by mapping and visualizing maintenance closures and related assets.

Solution

The project team used Bentley’s AssetWise ALIM to develop NOMS, a cloud-based platform, to plan and manage road closure events. NOMS will enable HE’s asset managers to ensure that lane availability does not fall below the 97 percent for a rolling year its license to operate requires. Leveraging Bentley technology, NOMS is a core part of Highways England’s wider asset lifecycle information management solution and strategy. It will allow asset management teams to directly access and examine planned road closure events, reducing worker risk, costs, traffic disruption, and more.

Outcome

Through NOMS, HE asset managers are able to share road closure events with local authorities and the traveling public across the United Kingdom, as well as visualize, for the first time, all planned road closures on a single map. NOMS has the potential to provide HE with a cost savings of GBP 7.02 million annually, with an ROI of 1,651 percent in the first year. In addition to reducing road closures by 3,600 per year, NOMS will also provide significant safety advantages for its workers, eliminating 14,400 hours of nighttime work on the SRN. The reduction in closures is also expected to deliver a positive environmental impact, saving approximately 10,824 tons of carbon emissions annually.

Software

HE developed NOMS using Bentley’s AssetWise ALIM software, which increases efficiency through its ability to manage, control, distribute, and archive all types of information related to infrastructure assets. AssetWise ALIM allows asset managers to visualize all planned road closures; centrally manage and schedule operational, maintenance, and scheme activities; and make informed decisions to minimize the need for road closures.