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Road

Today's challenges 

The challenges facing the road sector are daunting in both scale and number. 

Roads play a major role in economic activity and growth and are a vital part of creating the right infrastructure which removes access barriers to businesses. Increasing journey time reliability is essential. To achieve this, congestion, road works and collisions need to be reduced and traffic management needs to be improved. This has to be balanced with the environmental impact of roads and road transport. 

The contribution of road transport to greenhouse gases, air pollution and the negative impact on local environments needs to be reduced. The dominance of car use for all journey purposes needs to be addressed. Good quality bus services are in part dependent on the road network and the use of priority and other management schemes to maximise their effectiveness. The network also needs to be compatible with and accommodate increased cycling and walking routes.

The quality of network needed is expensive and effective ways of funding it have to be found. Road pricing is a challenging political issue.

How we can help

Eversheds acts for clients across the whole of the road transport sector including:  

• highways authorities
• DBFO contractors and other contractors 
• highways engineers, ecologists, road  safety auditors and other professionals
• freight carriers   
• road pricing technology providers 
• operators and procurers of bus services.

We act on road management and maintenance projects, ranging from the use of framework contracts for maintenance and renewals to outsourcing of entire maintenance and management functions enabling cost effective delivery of service which is measured against KPIs.

Through advising clients on new road projects we understand the issues which need to be addressed, starting from land use and land assembly to delivery KPIs, to ensure effective implementation of plans. Our work on DBFO projects, which includes acting for both the private and public sectors and acting on refinancing, means we particularly understand the issues on privately financed projects.

Our specialists have advised on major contracts for the procurement of buses using alternative energy sources, bus information systems and the supply and maintenance of traffic management systems.