Internal memo From: John Irvine Director of Network Services TransportNI Tel: 90 540462 Date: 2 April 2015 To: Divisional Managers Damien McQuillan Mark McPeak cc: Peter May Andrew Murray John McNeill Terry Deehan Pat Doherty HQ NS PPTOs Alan McMurray David Keenan David Weir Colin Brown Aileen Gault Gary Quinn Arnold Hamilton Harold Henry Colin Sykes Liam McEvoy (re para 32) Jonathan Saulters (re para 32) Brian Maxwell PRIORITISATION OF ROADS, BRIDGES AND STREET LIGHTING MAINTENANCE OPERATIONS 2015/16 – GUIDANCE TO DIVISIONS The purpose of this paper is to detail the arrangements within TransportNI to manage Resource pressures in 2015/16. Background The Resource budget available to TransportNI for road maintenance, street lighting maintenance and street lighting energy is £12.8M. The requirement for energy in 15/16 is £11.1M with an associated requirement of £2.5M for the statutory inspection of street lights. Effectively, we are starting the year with a negative budget for the remaining maintenance activities. Given that the outturn in 14/15 in estimated at over £40M and was as high as £50M in previous years, the scale of the pressure we are facing is stark. My submission to the Minister dated 23 March 2015 set out this position and a proposal for a skeleton service to be taken forward into 15/16 ( this is attached at
street lighting outages will increase at a rate of around 1000 per week; the condition of our footways, bitmac roads and cycle ways will deteriorate, as repair services are withdrawn from low trafficked rural roads (43% of the network) and only the most serious defects will be repaired in other areas; flooding incidents will be expected to increase during periods of heavy rain as there will be no routine gully clearing; traffic signal faults will be more common and repair periods will increase; and the risk of public liability claims could rise due to a breach of statutory duty. The funding requirement for a skeletal service is set out in Annex A. Compared to the funding available (£12.8M), the requirement is £21.9M (which, in effect, means that the Department would proceed carrying a financial risk of £2.3M of the £9.1M shortfall - until June Monitoring). An enhanced option is also presented to include for: the provision of a normal winter maintenance service, except for grit piles and grit bins; and additional gully emptying. This would bring the requirement to £25.9M, although there is a very low prospect of securing additional funding on this scale. Clearly, however, there are various permutations between £21.9M and £25.9M. A meeting with officials has been put in the diary for 30 March 2015 to discuss the issue further. RECOMMENDATION That you note the detail above and agree to meet with officials to discuss further. 25%
ANNEX A Resource Budget 2015/16 – Skeletal Service v Normal Minimum Standards v 14/15 Outturn Activity 2014 – 15 Forecast outturn Minimum requirement to meet normal standards in 15/16 Service level Requirement for a skeletal service only in 15/16 (including options to enhance**) Service level Street Lighting Energy 10.3 10.3 All street lights and illuminated signs energised 10.1 All street lights and illuminated signs energised Inspection & Testing to meet legal obligations 2.5 2.5 Statutory duties discharged 2.5 Statutory duties discharged Traffic Signal Energy 1.0 1.0 All traffic signals energised 1.0 All traffic signals energised Internal contractor Patching and Routine Maintenance O&M 5.0 4.2 Maintenance standards achieved Patching Repair or make safe all safety related defects (over 20mm deep) within specified timescales* Grass cutting Cut rural areas twice annually* Cut urban areas 5 time annually* Cut sightlines as required* Gully cleaning 0.8 /(1.7)** (0.3) (0.15) Maintenance standards not achieved Patching ( bitmac ) Repair of R1 defects only; generally repairs over 100mm deep, except on rural low traffic volume roads where no defects would be repaired. Grass cutting All areas to be cut once between April and October Junction sightlines, as required, for safety reasons Gully cleaning
service / 0.1 gully emptying for one clean of all gullies Stores 4.0 3.8 Fuel, PPE, signs material etc commensurate with skeletal activities above Skeletal street lighting maintenance service ( outages fixed) 1.6 (2.1**) Fuel, PPE, signs material etc commensurate with skeletal activities above including skeletal street lighting service ** Enhanced option requires additional fuel – see below 0.9 fuel 0.1 PPE 0.1 road marking/grass/fence 0.05 patching (cold lay) 0.05 Ch.8 traffic signs 0.4 Street Lighting **Enhanced option 0.3 fuel winter service 0.2 fuel gully emptying Traffic control maintenance minimum response ( Belfast) 2.9 2.5 Minimum response times to traffic signal faults - likely to result in less preventative maintenance being carried out resulting in more outages / faults 2.5 Longer contractor response times to traffic signal faults (currently 2-4 hours) - likely to result in less efficient junction operation. Reduced preventative maintenance will result in more outages/faults. Divisional signal maintenance ( outside Belfast) 2.0 2.0 Minimum response times to traffic signal faults - likely to result in less preventative maintenance being carried out resulting in more outages / faults 1.7 Longer contractor response times to traffic signal faults (currently 8 hours) - likely to result in less efficient junction operation. Less preventative maintenance being carried out resulting in more outages / faults Contractors Routine Maintenance, Patching, Grass Cutting 4.8 0.0 No contractors available in 15/16 0.0 As above using O&M only Contractors Street Lighting O & M 0.8 2.0 Enable 97% of street lights to be illuminated 0.0 Skeletal street lighting maintenance service using O&M only ( 25% of outages fixed) Emergency Response Contingency 0.6 0.3 Contingency for emergency response by O&M ( flooding, accident damage, trees down etc) 0.1 Absolute minimum for emergency response by O&M ( flooding, accident damage, trees down etc)