The Road to Resilience: Why Innovation Can’t Wait

For the last decade, the reputation of our sector has been frequently labelled in the media as low in productivity, poor in sustainability and high carbon in emissions. It’s interesting that whilst there are great examples of Client and Contractor collaboration, too frequently these end up as novelty “one off’ events with little evidence of resultant change to specifications or procurement models. The absence of formal processes, committed budget or resources dedicated to new innovation is particularly common in a fiscally constrained public roading sector. In addition, fears around failure, public and political reaction and keeping an open competitive market frequently stall innovation discussions before they have even begun. It’s not uncommon for there to exist a significant disconnect between aspirational environmental policy statements at the organisational level and the process and accountability to deliver it, let alone a willingness to test and observe –a fundamental and necessary element of innovation!

From the innovator’s perspective, innovation proposals  are inevitably challenged by the cost of development and their likely return on investment. I know from experience that pushing the case internally for such investment without surety of a receptive market can be very challenging. It’s certainly not for the faint hearted or those who are not prepared to play the long game.

The above observations concur with my own personal observations drawn from a 35 + year career spanning contracting, consultancy and client positions both here in Australasia and overseas. I do recognise that the assertions above, do not necessarily reflect all the issues at play, or indeed all public and private sector environments, however, I do believe that the time for actively confronting these challenges is now.

Why now?  well, I believe there are two significant concerns that we urgently need to address as a collective industry.

1. Innovation and Funding for Future Resilience

In many cases I would contend that as an industry we are overly reliant on using historically based performance and design models as the main predictor for future performance. I would challenge asset managers to regularly check and assess predicted pavement life at point of design versus actual life achieved. This is not a criticism, as I acknowledge much will have changed over an asset’s lifetime in terms of higher traffic volumes, development intensification, climate change, increased weather events, maintenance budget constraints, and probably worst of all, flawed directives of “sweat the asset”. But, if there is evidence of design life not being achieved, the question I would pose is: are your design processes, materials and maintenance practices and budgets being adjusted to provide more resilience to the transport network that you hold custodianship for? 

Ignoring these issues at funding and delivery level will leave painful legacy issues for our communities in the future – for our children and grandchildren. Personally, I am disappointed in the regular government narrative from both sides complaining about the state of the road infrastructure pre-election cycle, and then instructing the public and private sectors to “do more with less” the moment they come into office. That disappointment feels even more acute when there are so few pathways to stimulate innovation that might just allow us to do more with less. The budgets and resources for such activities are wholly insufficient. As the US learnt through its SHRP studies in the 1990s, transport infrastructure is a fundamental enabler for GDP and economic performance (for governments of any persuasion) and funding needs to be assigned to explore new technologies.

2. Assessment of Innovation

I accept that when considering innovative materials, designers and specifiers can never lose sight of the intended application of the material and the engineering demands it must satisfy. In doing so however, the tendency is often to assess the innovation against standards and specifications built around existing conventional materials. I would advocate that rather than relying on robust controls of inputs and processes, the real emphasis should be on objective evaluation of performance and consistency in controlled test or trial conditions replicating those for which the new product is intended. Simply put, if we continue to try to make innovation fit within existing conventional approaches, we can continue to expect conventional outcomes and consequently achieve very little in terms of breakthrough in productivity, sustainability and carbon reduction. Whilst much can be done these days with laboratory performance-based tests, on other occasions it means we must have the courage to trial on the road network itself with an understanding of shared risk between the parties and a commitment to ongoing monitoring.

Observing my teammates at Hiway and colleagues in other private and public sector organisations, who continue to pioneer innovation solutions, it is inspiring to see that despite these significant challenges, the passion to push the boundaries and strive for better, more sustainable solutions remain strong. 

At Hiway we continue to remain optimistic and keen to support new and existing clients who are open to working collaboratively to tackle the challenges our sector faces in delivering more resilient and sustainable road infrastructure for ourselves and the generations that follow.