Evaluation of Climate Change Resilience of Urban Road Network Strategies

Abstract

The impacts of the changing climate have caused extensive disruption to the road network in the United Kingdom in recent years. Roads are vital for economic growth and social wellbeing, and a disruption to the network can have disastrous consequences. Since the impacts of climate change will be felt at regional and local levels, it is the responsibility of local highway authorities to establish effective policies to strengthen the resilience of their section of the road network. This report uses the West Midlands as a case study and aims to evaluate its regional highway network management strategies, to determine the extent to which they promote resilience to climate change. Recommendations and findings from other literature are used to establish a set of evaluation criteria to compare the maturity of highway network management strategies for the West Midlands region. The evaluation of the policy documents is used to rank the maturity of the strategies, and recommendations are made to local authorities to highlight where the strategies could be improved. The analysis highlights the fragmentation and disparity between highways strategies across the region and consequently the vulnerability of the region to climate change.