A digital revolution in the construction industry
could dramatically increase productivity and save billions of
pounds, while radically reducing disruption to the public and
slashing the number of fatal building site
accidents.
That was the rallying call to the sector today from
Highways England as it spearheaded the launch of a 15-year plan
to accelerate the use of technology in
infrastructure.
Connected and autonomous plant (CAP) is already being
used to transform activities across the UK construction sector,
including for example the use of robotic trucks on Britain’s
biggest road project, the recently opened A14
improvement.
Now the Government company, with partners TRL and the
Infrastructure Industry Innovation Partnership (i3P), has set out
a roadmap – a vision where the use of CAP techniques will become
standard industry practice by
2035.
It has been estimated productivity improvements
achieved via CAP could exceed £400billion by
2040.
Highways England Chief Executive Jim O’Sullivan
said:
“Connected and autonomous plant will make work safer and
quicker. The Roadmap lays out the benefits and addresses the
barriers to making this a reality. We are confident the Roadmap
will help our supply chain to rapidly make this the norm on our
worksites.”
The CAP Roadmap was developed through collaboration
with more than 100 industry stakeholders.
It predicts that adoption of this technology across
the construction sector could:
“This work charts an extremely exciting and
potentially game changing route as to how we operate our sites as
we build Britain. My challenge to our industry is to take
the steps we can take today to improve our future, moving
forwards together to make our people more efficient, and safer
than ever.”
The Roadmap sets out nine workstreams focussing on
key areas.
Alex Wright, Chief Technologist for TRL explained:
“The CAP roadmap has been developed collaboratively with
more than 75 organisations.
Through a wide variety of questionnaires and workshops, we
identified the actions required to overcome the various
technical, business and legislative challenges to delivering the
vision.
Overall, the Roadmap brings together nine pathways which
have been identified to deliver success by 2035. This includes
elements from legislation, regulation and policy as well as
factors facilitating finance and investment and an understanding
of the skills gaps.”
Highways England is already trialling CAP plant in
key areas. Automated dump trucks were trialled on the
recently-opened A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement in the
East of England.
The trucks were programmed remotely to follow a
pre-determined route and have the capability to detect and avoid
obstacles and other vehicles, along the routes as they
drive.
They provide the potential for
round-the-clock working, helping to reduce the length of time
roadworks are on the ground. And by being automated they reduce
the risk of road workers being involved in incidents on site,
allowing jobs to be moved to other skilled
areas.
On the A14 and on motorways, a robot is saving
drivers from hundreds of hours of disruption. It uses precise
positioning technology to mark out where white lines need to be
painted on new or resurfaced roads and puts roadworkers at less
risk of an accident.
