Road Conditions in England: 2012

This statistical release present information on the condition of local authority roads and trunk roads in England. The statistics are drawn from a number of sources, including local authority surveys, TRAffic-speed Condition Surveys (TRACS) for the Highways Agency’s network, manual surveys for the majority of unclassified roads and skidding resistance surveys. This statistical release also includes statistics on maintenance expenditure on roads.

Key results
• Overall 24% of the local authority principal road network needed further investigation to check whether the existing level of skidding resistance was acceptable over the period 2009/10 – 2011/12. This compares to 25% from the previous three-year period.

• The proportion of the trunk motorway network likely to require planned maintenance within a year has fallen from 6% in 2003 to 3% in 2012, with the proportion for trunk ‘A’ roads falling from 11% to 4% over the same period.

• In 2012, 5% of the trunk motorway network and 13% of the trunk ‘A’ road network required further investigation to assess whether the level of skidding resistance was acceptable.

• In 2011/12, £3.0 billion was spent on the maintenance of local authority managed roads compared to £3.1 billion in 2010/11 and £3.3 billion in 2009/10 (all figures are quoted in 2011/12 prices).

• The Highways Agency spent £0.8 billion on the maintenance of trunk roads and motorways in 2011/12, the same as in 2010/11 (all figures are quoted in 2011/12 prices).