M25 Motorway: improving and operating one of Europe’s busiest highways networks

Capacity and fluidity.

London’s orbital motorway, the M25, is a critical infrastructure asset for personal and goods transport into and around the capital. To improve capacity in the run-up to the London Olympics in 2012, Highways England awarded a 30-year Design Build Finance Operate (DBFO) contract to Connect Plus, a consortium formed by Egis, Balfour Beatty, Skanska and Atkins. The operations and maintenance scope of the contract is delivered by subsidiary Connect Plus Services.

The first challenge of the project was to widen 63 km of motorway prior to the 2012 Olympics. Throughout the 30-year duration of this PPP contract, we are also responsible for investing approximately £1.7 billion (€2 billion) in lifecycle renewals. Operating the M25 additionally includes the administration of the tolled Dartford crossing, northbound through the twin-tube tunnel and southbound over the QEII Bridge. We successfully converted the toll crossing to the electronic Dart Charge in November 2014, resulting in free-flow traffic and improved journey times. We also fully deployed variable speed limits along the full length of the M25.

Connect Plus Services at a glance:

700 staff at Connect Plus Services spread across 7 operational depots, tasked with keeping the network safe and reliable
2620 incidents attended each year with average response time of 10 minutes in peak periods
27 winter maintenance vehicles (and 5 spares) responsible for spreading on average 13,000 of salt per year

Maximising asset availability.

As the contract imposes lane rental charges during the day, any maintenance works need to be carried out broadly between 10:00 pm and 6:00 am when these charges no longer apply. To ensure completion of tasks within this timeframe, we have gradually developed a long-term relationship with the project’s key supply chain partners, securing ISO 14001 certification for collaborative working.

Innovation has played a key role in the timely delivery of repair and improvement works. Successes have included the use of best practice from airports in terms of rapid cure concrete for concrete bay replacement (completion of a concrete bay replacement in an 8-hour shift) and the development of a bespoke ramping system to replace mutli-element expansion joints at night (notably on Queen Elizabeth II Bridge at Dartford), thereby removing the need for daytime closures and disruption.

A fine-tuned asset management approach.

The project is structured around an Asset Management philosophy that secured ISO55001:2014 certification in 2017. As part of the Asset Management scope, the teams on the project are responsible for inspecting and condition assessing all highways assets (over 140,000) and developing a rolling 30-year Asset Management Forward Plan (split into 1, 5 and 30 year plans).

To optimise the £1.7bn lifecycle investment, the project has implemented a best-in-class decision support tool, configured to take account of both short-term performance requirements and long-term handback obligations. This has involved the development and continual refinement of decision trees, deterioration models and a library of treatment types, costs and condition impacts. This AM IT architecture is being continually improved to take account of actual performance and advances in IT software.

M25 Motorway: improving and operating one of Europe’s busiest highways networks.

Client

Timeline

Environmental benefit

Key figures.

The challenge.

Capacity and fluidity.

Create.

Maximising asset availability.

Achieve.

A fine-tuned asset management approach.

Related projects.