Practical Aspects of Maintaining a Busy Old Motorway, While Keeping Traffic Moving

The M4 motorway, close to London Heathrow Airport, Windsor and Slough, needed maintenance. This major maintenance scheme involved a three-lane dual carriageway 4 kilometres long, and it carries 160,000 vehicles per day into and out of London. There were substandard features that included discontinuous hard shoulders, so hard shoulders could not be used to keep traffic flowing. Little or no work could be carried out during the day without causing enormous congestion. The road runs through high-density residential areas, which made noisy nighttime working an issue. All this makes this road to be almost unmaintainable. A contract duration of 20 weeks was set as the maximum that road users, businesses and residents could tolerate. The design was changed and re-scoped to achieve a pavement design life of some 10 years before the next major maintenance whilst keeping the traffic moving in the meantime. A comprehensive communications strategy was also developed for the scheme, and made a significant contribution to the whole scheme being a success. Traffic delays were almost held to the norm. This paper discusses how the works were tailored to suit the constraints, the comprehensive approach to informing the Road Users, Stakeholders, Press and residents, and how current practices within the Highways Agency have changed.

• Corporate Authors:

  International Society for Asphalt Pavements

  4711 Clark Avenue, Suite G
  White Bear Lake, MN  United States  55110
• Authors:
  • SCOTT, PL
  • VANDONDEREN, K
• Conference:
  • 10TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ASPHALT PAVEMENTS - AUGUST 12 TO 17, 2006, QUEBEC CITY, CANADA
• Publication Date: 2006

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Pagination: p. vol3,247-57
• Monograph Title: 10th International Conference on Asphalt Pavements - August 12 to 17, 2006, Quebec City, Canada

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Communication; Communications; Conferences; Construction sites; Maintenance; Pavements; Planning; Publicity; Traffic
• Geographic Terms: Canada
• Subject Areas: Construction; Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Operations and Traffic Management; Pavements; Planning and Forecasting; I10: Economics and Administration; I50: Construction and Supervision of Construction;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01084305
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transportation Association of Canada (TAC)
• Files: TAC
• Created Date: Jan 14 2008 1:50PM