Disrupting road building Peter Haddock talks to Dr Joanna White Roads Development Director at National Highways

On 28th September this year, National Highways announced the formation of the Roads Research Alliance (RRA), incorporating researchers from Cambridge University and over 20 companies from its supply chain. 

With a £14.6m budget, the RRA will lead a programme of works over the next five years that will help shape the future development of innovation in the highways sector. And nothing is off the table when it comes to transforming the way we build and maintain this crucial infrastructure, as Joanna White explained at the recent Highways UK event.

Joanna: "In my role as roads development director, I look after research, innovation, energy, intelligent transport systems, and road design, and I think I've got one of the best portfolios in National Highways, especially now we have launched the Roads Research Alliance.

"The RRA will bring together the work being carried out through our 'Digital Roads of the Future' partnership with Cambridge University and the innovative ideas from our supply chain. This will allow us to collectively solve some of the challenge areas we've got in National Highways around the future road network.

"As an organization, we want to develop and deliver self-monitoring, intelligent, sustainable, and, most importantly, safe projects. The RRA has the core role of working through our Digital Roads, sustainability, automation and carbon reduction targets.

This will be achieved by taking desktop studies and the great ideas coming out through academia through real-world testing in a safe and controlled way.

"And then it's all about moving collectively through the critical phase of deployment with our supply chain, and being one of the first projects of its kind, we will be sharing our learning with the wider industry.

In fact, the UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the EU Marie Sklodowska Curie Action (MSCA) have co-fund the programme with a total of £5.5m coming from European funding. With the additional contributions from industry partners making up the £14.6m total, we will be able to deliver much bigger value from the programme.

When it comes to delivering our Net Zero goals, we will be looking at how we can reduce CO2 emissions across the board. This will include how we use plant and equipment but also what materials we use. For example, we are already looking at how to deliver self-healing roads that can also be a carbon sink, delivering way beyond Net Zero.

And on the materials side, we are researching how to make them more sustainable by using waste materials like plastics and looking at how to replace cement in concrete. Over the next five years, we will combine desktop modelling and simulation with real-world testing in all environments and scenarios. We will then discover what works and accelerate the adoption of new techniques across our assets.

"With the RRA involving so many different organizations and their supply chains, we will also be looking at a whole range of innovations coming into the market on an ongoing basis.

Joanna concluded: "And to be Net Zero across all of our operations which range from roads to data centres, offices, and beyond, we will need to achieve 'Negative Zero' in some areas. And this is where innovations in plant and equipment will play a key role as we look to recycle, reuse and embed carbon into our structures."

The RRA's work is set to challenge the norm regarding the delivery and maintenance of our core road infrastructure, and all those in the supply chain will closely watch the findings.

For example, if new materials are specified, there will be new methods of construction that, in turn, can lead to demand for different types of equipment or attachments. And with self-healing materials being a clear ambition for National Highways, the journey down the digital roads of the future will certainly be accelerating, thanks to the RRA.