One of the strengths of the NHT Network is its ability to bring together people, evidence and experience from across the sector.
Increasingly, that means looking beyond the UK. NHT recently worked with the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds to host an international knowledge-exchange workshop. Representatives from New Zealand’s Road Efficiency Group joined senior local highways practitioners, academics and PIARC UK.
The discussion focused on issues facing highway authorities in both countries. These included road maintenance, asset data, service performance, value for money and investment planning.
Despite the distance between the UK and New Zealand, many of the challenges were familiar. Both countries face constrained funding, ageing assets, workforce pressures and rising public expectations. Both also need to demonstrate better outcomes from every pound invested.
For NHT members, this is where the value of a strong network becomes clear. By bringing together evidence, experience and new ideas, NHT can help members learn from others and explore different approaches to common challenges.
Sharing UK Evidence and Experience
Professor Phil Wheat from the Institute for Transport Studies opened the workshop by sharing the latest learning from the NHT Cost, Quality and Customer Efficiency Network.
The CQC framework brings together information on cost, asset condition, customer satisfaction and network characteristics. This helps authorities understand performance and value for money on a more comparable basis. The evidence continues to show that local highway authorities have delivered significant efficiency improvements despite sustained financial pressure. It also reinforces the value of proactive and preventative maintenance.
The challenge is often not proving that preventative maintenance offers better long-term value. It is making that evidence clear and compelling enough to support investment decisions. The workshop also explored the relationship between asset condition and public satisfaction.
NHT evidence has consistently shown that residents respond to visible improvements in the roads around them. This reinforces the importance of linking technical performance with the experience of the customer. A network may be performing well according to technical measures, but if residents do not see or experience improvement, public confidence can remain low.
That is why the combination of cost, quality and customer insight is so important.
What Can We Learn from New Zealand?
The New Zealand presentations provided an interesting comparison. The Road Efficiency Group operates around a simple principle: from the road user’s perspective, it is one connected network. One of its most significant developments has been the Consistent Condition Data Collection programme. Rather than individual road authorities separately procuring and validating their own core condition surveys, New Zealand has moved towards a nationally coordinated and centrally funded approach.
The programme uses common specifications, consistent quality assurance and shared data standards. Importantly, the information remains owned by individual road authorities and is available to support their local asset-management decisions. The value is not simply in collecting data nationally. A dedicated centre of excellence also supports authorities in understanding and using the information. This helps them develop forward works programmes, treatment strategies and stronger investment cases.
The workshop heard that the overall cost of the national programme is broadly comparable with the combined cost of the previous fragmented arrangements. However, it now provides wider coverage, stronger quality assurance and greater confidence in the consistency of the results. This prompted an important discussion about whether there are lessons for England.
Local highway authorities currently use a range of survey technologies, suppliers and systems. That flexibility has advantages, but it can also create challenges around consistency and comparability. This is becoming increasingly important as condition data is used in national reporting, transparency requirements and performance assessment. The discussion was not about simply copying the New Zealand model or using one technology everywhere.
Different networks will continue to require different solutions. However, there may be an opportunity to explore whether a more coordinated framework for standards, validation and quality assurance could provide a more consistent and trusted evidence base while preserving local decision-making.
Turning Data into Practical Value
New Zealand’s Transport Insights platform also demonstrated how data can become a practical decision-support tool. The platform brings together information on condition, safety, expenditure, traffic, data quality and performance. It can be viewed nationally, regionally and at individual authority level. What began as a reporting platform has developed into a tool that supports comparative performance, forward works programming and investment planning. One of the strongest messages from the workshop was that better technology alone is not enough.
Trusted information depends on consistent standards, good quality assurance and strong data management. It also requires support for the people expected to use the information. This is particularly relevant to the NHT Network. Our role has always been about more than providing numbers.
The real value comes from helping members understand what the data is telling them, compare performance intelligently and use that insight to support better decisions.
A Stronger Collective Voice
The workshop also highlighted the need for the local highways sector to tell a stronger and more consistent national story. Individual authorities understand their own networks, investment needs and the consequences of underfunding. What is more difficult is demonstrating the collective picture.
The combination of NHT customer insight, CQC performance and value-for-money evidence, asset-condition information and wider sector data creates an opportunity to strengthen that evidence base.
Together, this information can help demonstrate:
- The condition of the local highway network
- What local highway authorities are achieving
- Where investment can deliver the greatest return
- The wider economic and social consequences of network deterioration
The workshop also identified opportunities for further research. One area discussed was the wider value of maintaining footways. Combining NHT public-satisfaction information with footway condition and intervention data could help demonstrate the contribution that good maintenance makes to accessibility, walking, independence and potentially wider health outcomes.
What This Means for NHT Members
This international exchange is a good example of the wider value of being part of the NHT Network.
Membership provides access to data and benchmarking. But the value goes beyond the data itself. The Network creates opportunities to learn from others, test new ideas, contribute to wider sector thinking and bring national and international learning back into local decision-making.
We will now take forward a number of the themes discussed during the workshop. This includes sharing the learning with the Department for Transport, exploring potential lessons from New Zealand’s condition-data model and considering opportunities for further research and collaboration.
We will also continue the dialogue with our colleagues in New Zealand. For NHT members, the aim is simple. To provide insight that is useful, practical and relevant to the decisions you make every day. This workshop showed the value of looking beyond our own boundaries and asking whether there may be better ways of doing things. That is what a strong network should enable.
NHT is more than a source of data. It is a network that brings together evidence, experience and insight to help local highway authorities make better decisions.
