Assessing the impact of road schemes on people and communities

Abstract

As the body responsible for the functioning of the strategic road network, the work of the Highways Agency influences the lives of millions of people across England. Highways are critical to the UK economy. Therefore, their efficient and effective functioning promotes national well-being. At the same time, the Highways Agency recognises that roads can have profound impacts on the local well-being of neighbouring communities. This paper discusses the drivers shaping the Highway Agency's response to social and community effects. It summarises research on what social sustainability means for road schemes, and describes how these findings could form the basis for a new methodology for assessing community effects. The Highways Agency is considering the possibility of including this methodology in its widely used Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB). A revised chapter in the manual would provide strengthened guidance on how environmental assessments should account for the effects of road schemes on communities including the different groups of people within these communities. It would be a key resource for designers and engineers to understand and address the social dimensions of new road construction and the maintenance and improvement of existing roads.

A systematic review of indicators to assess the sustainability of road infrastructure projects

“…The criterion livelihood security and opportunity is adopted to construct indicators related to the socioeconomic effects of projects. These indicators can be grouped into mobility and accessibility improvement, community livability [9,16,24,45,48,55,57,84], and societal wellbeing and equity [10,21,36,42,71]. Several indicators concern intergenerational equity (e.g., direct and indirect effects on employment), and transportation costs are also derived from the criterion [42,71].…”

Editorial

“…In the second paper, Mitchard et al (2011), a new framework for assessing the social impact of road schemes again highlights how engineers need to move from just considering environmental impacts and now place equal emphasis on social impacts. Major road schemes have traditionally included early public consultation as set out by the Planning Act (2008).…”

“…The paper calls for bridge-projectspecific guides, but perhaps a global shift of mindset from engineer as technologist to socio-technologist as advocated by Bell et al (2011) would mean that more generic guidance of the type presented by Mitchard et al (2011) would suffice. Furthermore, early engagement of communities with projects in order to identify potential issues and risks is advocated, in a similar way as proposed by Bell et al An additional conclusion is that engineers need to develop new skills in, for example, judgement and decision making, again echoed in the second paper.…”