Making Potholes History

Potholes matter to voters - Here’s how technology can eradicate them within 2 years.

Potholes are a growing scourge and always come up on as a top issue the doorstep. So far, politicians have dealt with it by throwing more money at the problem, but to no avail.

Potholes are not a resource problem – they’re an execution problem. We are repairing potholes in just the same way we did before the war!

There is scope to do the whole job better, quicker, reduce accidents and save billions using technology. Basically, councils need to change their approach and we need cross-party consensus to set up a national centre of excellence (A British Tech War on Potholes). That should include:

• Road scanning (e.g. AI and lidar devices to identify potholes early, before they get big and problematic). Lots of tech already out there. Canada is having a lot of success with this. 

• Latest Machinery to repair potholes in ways that last much longer – (e.g. the JCB pothole Pro).

• Materials used to repair. A big part of the reason for the growth in potholes is low quality repairs with low quality materials. Most pothole repairs are actually just repeat repairs of bodged jobs.

• The contracts signed with contractors and the culture. The biggest problem is local authorities and private contractors have no incentive to do a good job. In fact, it's the opposite! Contractors are generally paid on a per pothole basis, so they earn more by doing a bad job (then frequently repairing the same pothole!). A botched repair will last weeks, while a good job will last over a decade. If we can get the techniques/contracts/culture and statutory warranties fixed, that alone would solve the problem.  

  
  

A Potholes Centre of Excellence would identify the best tech to locate potholes, and then the best machinery and materials to fix them for the long-term. Then roll it out and benchmark local authorities by copying the best. Local authorities may not have bandwidth to do this on their own.

Crucially, we must also design standardised long-term contracts for local authority road maintenance (currently local councils are getting criminally exploited), and introduce a statutory warranty of a minimum of twelve years for all road repairs. Some road repairs are so badly done they do not last a fortnight.

Potholes is an example of where modern tech can do the job for less, do it quicker, improve safety and cut costs. Other countries are doing this. Canada has much longer roads, more heavy trucks and worse weather. Yet thanks to its embrace of road repair tech, they are in a far better state.

This Feels like an easy win on a popular voter issue. Don't just let the public sector carry on doing a job badly and just throw ever more money at the problem - instead, use entrepreneurship do it better and cheaper. 

Conservative party grandee and JCB Chairman, Lord Bamford is passionate about this issue and has some fantastic equipment.

Useful Telegraph Article, Notes from my call with JCB, are appended below, along with my original in-depth report from 2021.

Why Britain has failed miserably to solve its potholes crisis – and how to fix it (telegraph.co.uk)

Pothole call with JCB 

A Pothole Pro costs 180-200k, and JCB throws in a 5yr warranty, plus training and licensing. The training takes 1-2 weeks.

The payback takes months given the efficiencies = £30 per pothole to repair (all in costs), versus £60 average, and much quicker.

USP of the Pothole Pro is the preparation. Preparation of the potholes prior to repair is critical, if the repair is going to last.

Recommended reading the alarm report by the AIA on the shocking state of the roads.

Responsibility for highways lies with local authorities or local councils. Fixing potholes lies with local authority people and assets, or tier 1 contractors (PFI or term maintenance contracts).

In Scotland and the North, it’s mainly local authorities; in the South, and especially around London, it’s mainly contractors.  The system is fragmented, ever local authority does it differently.

The approach is reactive rather than predictive. It’s a challenge to change the whole culture of temporary repairs. i.e. Better to do it properly with a decent one-time fix.

Scotland probably would be the easiest place to change things, as the system is local authority based. That would include empowering highways officers, Holding contractors to account (e.g. with 10-year warranties for all repairs), and ringfencing funding for innovation.

Spotting and inspecting potholes is something that is separate and also needs looking at.  Current system is a wasteful mess – often involves TWO people just driving around looking for potholes. No need for two people.

The trouble with STAN (the app that lets motorists feed road photos into its system, and then uses AI to geolocate and record potholes) is that it charges local councils a lot to access it).

‘Criminal wastage is huge.’ So many horror stories. It’s the waste and inefficiency not the lack of money that is the problem here. It needs to be a national issue. So far, central government and ministers have just said it’s a devolved local matter and thrown money at local authorities.

A model template Contract for local authorities would be a good idea. Currently every single contract is different ad some of the contracts are terrible, lasting decades (up to 25 years) with no guarantees, and all the power with the contractors.

The contractors won’t change how they work without extortionate price rises. E.g. where contractors have been asked to use the Pothole Pro, they buy it and the rent it back to themselves at an extortionate price, then bill the council.

The key is to get contractors buying in. Currently they focus on the number of fixes, not the quality of fixes. i.e. they are incentivised to do a bad job - Sometimes going back to repair the same potholes dozens of times.

JCB has all the details on the contracts, having done a lot of FOI requests. This is a personal crusade for Lord Bamford.

In-Depth 2021 Report (all of which is still valid)

Executive Summary

· Potholes and the poor state of Britain’s Roads are a growing problem for voters.

· Fortunately, new technologies should mean that potholes can be found and fixed cheaply within 24 hours. The technology is already here. For example road-scanning technology on autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles could automatically photograph potholes and beam the location back to the relevant authority in real-time.

· Fixing potholes quickly would save government money, reduce accidents and reduce damage to cars.

· Voters want the problem fixed. Doing so helps motorists, cyclists, local authorities and motor insurers.

Potholes Matter

Voters are getting more and more furious over the state of the roads. So important is the issue that it is now starting to swing bi-elections. Door canvassers in Chesham & Amersham and Batley & Spen, have found potholes to be the one of voters’ major concerns[1] – something the Liberal Democrats successfully exploited.

For most politicians, this is one matter they would rather be rid of: It isn’t one of those big or global issues that requires some principled stance or national movement. However, for voters, there are good reasons why potholes matter:

· Research by Kwik-Fit puts the cost to motorists of repairing pothole damage to their vehicles at £1.25 billion a year. One in five mechanical failures in cars on UK roads is caused by them.[2]

· The RAC reported that between April and June of 2020 there were 1,766 pothole-related accidents. Between January and March 2021 of 4,694 of its call outs, a twentieth of the total, were related to pot-hole damage.[3]

· For cyclists, potholes are an even bigger danger. According to Cycling UK, 15% of cyclists involved in an accident report the cause to be some form of road defect. Cycling UK even runs a campaign called ‘Fill that Hole.’[4]

The Sorry State of Britain’s Roads

· Last year, one million fewer potholes were fixed than in 2014-15, and 16% of council maintained roads were reportedly in a poor state.[5]

· According to the RAC, Drivers are now 1.5 times more likely to suffer a pothole breakdown than in 2006.[6]

· According to a survey by the AA, 88% of drivers say that roads are in a worse condition now compared to 10 years ago. 67% say that roads have ‘considerably deteriorated’ over the last decade.[7]

Technology to the Rescue

Road Scanning Technology

When it comes to potholes, one of the big problems for councils is finding them, and finding them quickly. The longer potholes are left, the bigger they get, the more dangerous they become, and the more expensive they are to fix. Finding and repairing potholes rapidly would save councils money, save motorists money AND reduce road accidents.

The familiar process of potholes taking weeks to be reported should be a thing of the past. Without realising it, millions of motorists’ vehicles are already scanning the road every second. Our cars know exactly where the potholes are, they just need to tell the council.

The first way to do this would be to tweak the telematics and on-dash cameras insurers already place in millions of our vehicles. They could identify dangers like potholes or fallen rocks, and instantly beam a photograph and GPS co-ordinates straight back to the Highways Agency or local authority responsible.

Another way is for semi-autonomous vehicles (already out there) and autonomous vehicles (widespread trials ongoing with the government) to utilise the road-scanning technology they are using anyway. Technologies such as LiDAR scans the road hundreds of times a second. The information is then fed to the cars’ on-board computer and processed in a fraction of a second, adjusting the individual suspension at each wheel. Again, all you need to do is tweak the algorithm to simultaneously report any pothole or obstruction that it detects back to the local authority. Cost is no longer a constraint: LiDAR devices are now down to $100 and the size of a fag packet[8].

And the government has a natural partner that would love to help fix potholes: The insurance industry. Potholes cost the insurance industry millions of claims and billions of pounds a year.

Companies like Direct Line are already working closely with the autonomous vehicles industry, and have been putting telematics devices in our cars for well over a decade.

For years, government has been working closely with the motor insurance industry through the ABI, on a range of issues (Whiplash reforms, Ogden rate, refunds during lockdowns, etc). This would be just another mutually beneficial collaboration.

Repair Technologies.

If you can find potholes easily, the only issue is getting them filled quickly.

Fortunately there is real progress here, with a growing array of cheaper and quicker alternatives to asphalt, including recycled plastic and recycled road materials.

Furthermore, even the machinery is getting better. For example, several councils are now trialling a new machine from JCB that can fill potholes in less than eight minutes and at half the cost.[9]

A Stitch in Time

Repairing potholes is an issue where upfront spending creates real financial savings. If left unmended, potholes grow - meaning more accidents and a bigger, more costly and disruptive repair job later on.

Thus, as well as embracing new technology to find and fix, it makes sense to allocate a chunk of the ‘Build Back Better’ stimulus programme to get on top of the issue, and avoid a bigger bill in future. This would require a change, as the current proposals do not mention potholes.[10] That would go a long way to fulfilling the Conservative Party’s 2020 manifesto pledge to ‘Launch the biggest ever pothole-filling programme as part of our National Infrastructure Strategy.’

The Right Fix at the Right Time

Having an accurate map of an area’s potholes would allow authorities to schedule the work in the most efficient way, managing the issue rather than reacting.

Crucially, knowing the size, depth and location of potholes in advance would also ensure the right treatment was used to fill them in. A big problem is that often large or deep potholes where there is subsidence are just filled over, so the problem just re-occurs a few months later.

Who Benefits?

· Motorists AND Cyclists – Safer roads and fewer accidents.

· Councils and the Highways Agency – getting potholes reported and repaired quickly saves money and resources.

· Motor insurers – thanks to falling accidents and falling claims.

· Councillors and MPs – who can focus on chasing up the many other important matters. It would also demonstrate that all that door-canvassing was not in vain, and that MPs really can listen to locals.

Taking it Further

Competition and benchmarking:

Widespread use of road-scanning technology would give us a good picture of Britain’s roads, right down to the local level. We could see in real time who was doing a good job on maintenance and who was not; who is quick to fix things and who is slow. We can then apply the best practice of the leaders to bring the laggards up to scratch.

A more radical idea would be to outsource minor road maintenance to the motor insurance industry. Rather than using council tax, pothole repairs and the like would be paid for with motor insurance. Motor insurers have every incentive to keep roads in a good state and to get them repaired quickly and safely. There is also a financial incentive to do this as cheaply and efficiently as possible.

Making Potholes History.pdf

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[1] On politics and potholes – or why the little things matter a lot - CapX [2] Cost of Potholes Rises to £1.25 Billion | Kwik Fit (kwik-fit.com) [3] Potholes - All you need to know - Politics.co.uk [4] Fill That Hole | FillThatHole.org.uk [5] Councils filling potholes 'every 19 seconds' - BBC News [6] Potholes - All you need to know - Politics.co.uk [7] Potholes - All you need to know - Politics.co.uk [8] LIDAR sensors aren’t just for self-driving cars anymore - The Verge [9] Tarmac and JCB successfully trial new pothole fixing machine | Infrastructure Intelligence (infrastructure-intelligence.com) [10] Build Back Better - our plan for growth (publishing.service.gov.uk)