Highways Voices Paul Hutton

This week, Highways Voices hears ideas on how to overcome challenges in staying close to customers, adapting to their needs, and future-proofing a company portfolio.
Our guest is the CEO of SWARCO, Michael Schuch who discusses the the problems facing the industry because of differing regulation around the world, especially when it comes to adherence to patents and to carbon limits.
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Mr Schuch talks about how we must make sure that countries that produce outside Europe and want to deliver into Europe, are not having an advantage. "A mechanism was put in place called CBM - Cross Border Adjustment Mechanism," he explains. "But this mechanism only applies for certain industries, like steel like aluminium, like fertilisers and other materials, but glass is not part of it. So if you produce in Europe, you pay this tax. But if you produce outside Europe and want to import into Europe, you don't pay."
He also gives his thoughts on the issues around securing public sector funding for transportation innovation, discussing how money is often not available for major deployments after the concept has been proved: "When it is about small scale deployment, it's one thing," he says. "So putting a demo somewhere in place or a pilot in place, that's one thing - money is spent there. But when it comes to wide scale deployment, this is missing."
You'll also hear his thoughts on the importance of a customer-centric approach to innovation, as well as allowing a culture where people can get things wrong in order to get things right.
Away from the main interview, you'll hear news from our partners including LCRIG's great offer for start-ups and micro companies, and why Adrian has chosen Transport for London as the winners of his accolade this week.

Effective management of highway assets is on the agenda this week on Highways Voices.
We speak with Brightly, one of the UK’s leading providers of asset management software in the highways sector. Local authorities and contractors have been using the company’s asset management solution for over 20 years now, helping them make the correct decisions around prioritising and scheduling highway works.
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The secret to successful and effective asset management, according to Chris Thompson, Director of Sales at Brightly, is to provide a platform that delivers as much data as possible to help inform the best possible decisions, as local authorities come under more pressure than ever to repair as many potholes as well as deliver a proactive asset management plan.
“They need access to the correct data at the time they need it. And so, through continued development over the years of Confirm, managers, budget holders and senior leaders have had the visibility that they need to make the correct decisions,” he says.
He's joined by Business Development Manager Matthew Kelley to discuss effective management of all highway infrastructure - not just the surface of the road and their thoughts on highways funding.
You’ll also hear news from our partners ADEPT, LCRIG, the TTF and ITS UK and why Cormack wins “Adrian’s Accolade” this week.

“If I speak locally, in Sussex, we have a high number of cars, of sports cars, and bikers who come to visit the coast in the weekends, for example, and there’s little doubt that the communities through which they drive really do support average speed cameras and other safety cameras to assist them to reduce both the noise and also the speed of that traffic," says Sussex Police Chief Constable Jo Shiner (pictured) on this week's Highways Voices, "But then there are others who will persistently put pictures of where the safety cameras are, whether it’s on Facebook or other social media, almost to say this is here, and almost make it ineffective.”
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The head of roads policing in the UK joins us on this week's podcast to discuss making our roads safer, and the role of technology in doing so. She also discusses a graduated driving license, eCall, and tougher sentences for drivers breaking the rules.
“If you actually compare some of the sentences that drivers who do kill people, because of their way in which they drive on the roads, versus maybe some other crimes in society, predominantly, you see that those sentences are lower,” she said. “And that’s just one example where I think families are not feeling that they do get the justice that sometimes they deserve.”
She even talks about why, when you’re driving perfectly safely and legally, if you see traffic police, for some reason you feel guilty!
You'll also hear news from our partners ADEPT, LCRIG, the TTF and ITS UK and who wins "Adrian's Accolade" this week,

"Don't try and talk to the politicians - the truth is actually having good relations with... politicians will have very little impact on the actual decisions government takes," explains former Transport Secretary Chris Grayling on this week's Highways Voices.
He joined an ITS UK meeting last week and was interviewed by Highways Voices host Paul Hutton, who recorded the chat for you to feature on this week's podcast.
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Mr Grayling was asked how to influence policy, and pointed out what ministers don't do: "Ministers have no involvement in procurement, they have little involvement in decisions about technology," he said. "A recommendation come from a civil servant to say we've evaluated these three things - we need this change the regulations in order to make that happen, do you agree? But that will come from the civil service, I will come from expert panels set up to look at individual issues. It may come from local authority pressure, it may come from outside bodies, like the RAC and the AA. Actually, the last people you want to be focusing all your time and effort on is politicians, because government doesn't work like that."
In the conversation, Mr Grayling discusses his past before parliament, his experience in the role and key issues around smart motorways and road safety and public opinion, plus the "elephant in the room" - Road User Charging. He also explained how, when you're Secretary of State, you can expect to be blamed for things that are not your fault.
"I don't think we're going to wake up one morning and have a government white paper saying we're going to introduce a pay per mile on every stretch of road in the UK," he said. "What I do think is we're going to see more... paid for miles for lorries on motorways, for example, it may mean pay per mile in and around urban areas. I think that the Treasury is going to have a deep desire to introduce road user charging in order to offset the loss of revenue from electric vehicles, but I'm not convinced it's going to get its way anytime soon."
You'll also hear the latest from our pages on Highways News, plus reaction to the Transport Technology Forum's conference, the latest from Live Labs 2, ITS UK's briefing for newly-elected politicians, and a new invention to be shown off at this year's LCRIG Innovation and Learning Festival.

"A lot of our time is firefighting, fixing day to day problems, maybe some signal timings, but it's hard to look into the future when we don't have time," admits City of York Council's Sean Bulmer in a panel discussion at the SWARCO User Group meeting in Coventry, featured on this week's Highways Voices.
Mr Bulmer was joined by Emily Madsen from Staffordshire County Council who admits she struggles for time in her day job so "coming to events like this helps me think about the future".
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The local authority representatives were joined by CEO of the Local Council Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG), Paula Claytonsmith and SWARCO's MD in UK and Ireland, John Pickworth. They discussed Innovation and planning for the future, strategies for more efficient transport around technology and localised approaches.
The need for incremental progress and the role of private sector involvement were also discussed to help, for example, the ability for an authority to make the most out of the data it has. "It's how you use that data, how you present that data," Mr Pickworth explains. "Is it presented in a way that enables decisions to be made?"
Ms Claytonsmith added that support for authorities is vital. "I spoke to [one] who says they've literally got 20 or 30 different systems, each holding different sets of data, not communicating. And I think now that we're in a much more complex environment, the fact that we don't have as many people in our teams... So actually having an integrated system that allows you to make complex decisions drawing in different data becomes ever more important."
You'll hear more on this fascinating discussion, recorded in a rather echoey hotel conference room, which also covers infrastructure obsolescence and funding priorities as well as risk taking, innovation, challenges and priorities.

Despite bringing you daily podcasts last week thanks to our sponsors SWARCO and AGD Systems, we still couldn’t fit in everything we gathered, so in this bonus podcast we talk about road safety, companies coming together and artificial intelligence.
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The Australian company Acusensus has proved it’s not just speed that can be enforced by technology on our roads thanks to its technology to spot people using their hand-held phones whilst driving, and those who aren’t wearing a seatbelt. We catch up with founder and Managing Director Alexander Jannink, before talking to smartmicro CEO Ralph Mende about the company's new products and its acquisition of a British company.
A new name to us since the last Intertraffic is Umovity, a partnering of American signals technology company Econolite, and the well known PTV Group. VP, Engineering, Sunny Chakravarty explains how, by better combining hardware, software and now transport modelling, intersections can become safer and more efficient.
Many, many companies talked AI across Intertraffic, so McKinsey’s expert in the subject, Alberto Chiulli, cuts through the hype before we close the programme with the CEO of Yunex Traffic, John Newhard, who hosted a panel session at Intertraffic Amsterdam 2024 looking at AI, the Cloud and Mobility, and how new technologies and computing could affect our industry. He reflects on what was discussed.