New legislation from the Department for Transport
requiring councils to invest in IT to co-ordinate roadworks has
fewer inconsistencies than developers first thought - but there are
still worries over meeting the law's deadline.
As reported in Computer Weekly, software developers, councils
and utility companies raised concerns about the
New Roads and Street Works Act technical specification, saying
there were inconsistencies in it that would make the deadline of
April 2008 hard to meet. The act will require councils to make
their IT interoperable with utility companies' systems so that they
can co-ordinate roadworks to reduce traffic congestion. The
Department of Transport has released the document for
consultation and the deadline date for comments is December
11.
Dave Turnbull, chair of the National Joint Utilities Group, said
the document is "reasonable" but said the April deadline would
still be difficult.
He said, "We still have some concerns about the timescale. We
were initially looking for nine months from the publication of the
document and the change of law - six months to install software and
three months for testing. We will not be able to do that now, and
we have concerns about what will happen when the systems go
live."
Wayne Scott, assistant traffic manager at Bracknell Forest
Council, said, "The question is whether we will have enough time to
test the system and train people. There will not be enough time to
bed the system in."
The Eton Developers Group (EDG), which represents 16 software
firms and utilities, is advising the government on the development
of roadworks software. In October they were worried technical
inconsistencies would cause problems for councils implementing the
systems, but now say the problems with it are "minor" and lower in
number than first thought.
Spokesman Alun Hunt, marketing and communications officer at EDG
member company Exor, said, "Our concern was that there was no
change log for the document, so after the DfT had revised it, we
did not know what changes had been made and where.
"We have now found the problems are quite minor, and the DfT is
working closely with us."