The challenge
An effective transport system is at the very heart of our economy, helping to move people and goods around the country, and a key contributor to a wide range of employment, health, leisure and social outcomes both for individuals and for wider society. The motorways and major trunk roads which make up the Strategic Road Network (SRN) form a core part of England’s transport infrastructure in providing the critical connections between cities, communities and major ports, airports and rail terminals. The SRN today comprises over 4,300 miles of motorway and trunk A-roads, carrying almost nine out of ten passenger miles and four-fifths of freight travel.
Since 2001 traffic in England has increased seven times faster on motorways than on other roads. Future traffic trends and road user behaviour are hard to predict, but continued growth in levels of SRN usage together with changes in how it is used (e.g. digitisation and decarbonisation) are anticipated. Through a series of five-year Road Investment Strategies the Government has set out plans for developing the SRN up to 2030, and needed to understand individual and commercial SRN users’ experiences and needs both immediately and in terms of how technology should affect the way the SRN functions from 2030 and 2050.
What we did
Over several years we have undertaken numerous studies for the Department for Transport, including large-scale qualitative work to understand how people used the SRN, their expectations of it, priorities for improvements, and what drives and undermines satisfaction with the SRN. Further work includes public dialogue to help inform road infrastructure investment activities in light of the disruptive potential of electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, and real-time information. We examined the way that people might react to these technologies and how this might affect the kind of road network that they need, as well as the issues that these technologies may raise relating to safety, cost, privacy, data protection, the environment and other areas.
Linked to this, we have worked with National Highways (which is responsible for building, operating and maintaining the SRN) to create a Customer Expectations Framework linked to a customer experience maturity model, to support resource planning to deliver a service that delivers satisfactorily against enhanced expectations in the future.
What we found
The projects have produced varied insights, but fundamentally we found that users’ expectations are influenced by prior experience of using the SRN in general, and the roads in question. In turn, expectations influence each current experience of using the SRN because they set a norm for what is seen as satisfactory at a particular time and place, and allow users to plan around the ‘service’ that they expect from the SRN to give themselves the best experience possible.
The experience of using the SRN has three key components: how safe does it feel; how stressful/stress-free is it; and how much mental effort does it require. These elements are determined by how well traffic is managed, surfaces and signage maintained, roadworks are conducted, and other factors. Finally, all this comes together in a sense of control over one’s journey: satisfaction in large part comes from the feeling that you are able to make a journey on your own terms with the conditions and outcomes that you expect.
These and other insights have contributed to planning relating to the Road Investment Strategies, and the ways in which measures of satisfaction with the SRN are considered.
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