The Department of Transport's (DfT) guidance on the new regime for local authority road condition surveys is delayed until next summer at the earliest, a DfT official has said.
The three-month delay is a result of a trial being carried out at a county council, the DfT’s head of road network statistics, Laura Murphy, told an audience of local authority highway officials.
The department announced in 2021 that it would allow local highway authorities to choose their own surveying technology for road condition monitoring and introduce a new data standard.
Local highway authorities are required to submit road condition data annually to the DfT, which currently prescribes that it be collected using Surface Condition Assessment for the National Network of Roads (SCANNER) survey vehicles (pictured).
However, the DfT has said that this provides barriers to new suppliers in the sector, which discourages innovation. In future, highway authorities will be able to use any accredited technology that conforms to the standard.
Ms Murphy said the DfT did not intend to abandon SCANNER but open up the market.
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