Expect fewer new roads in future, says Amey director

Steve Withers cut his teeth building roads as a civil engineering contractor. But now, as managing director of Amey Inter-Urban, he has a different vision of the future for UK transport.

Firstly, give us some context - what does Amey Inter-Urban cover?

It's a £240m business focused on the strategic highway and rail networks across the UK.

The highways business is split into two business streams focused on the HA (one stream), and then Transport Scotland and Road Service Northern Ireland (second stream). The rail business is also split into two streams focussing on track renewals (a 50/50 Joint Venture with Colas) plus signalling and power. We also have rail civils expertise.

As well as asset management we do work around softer issues such as influencing driver behaviour and other matters that affect journey time reliability.

Where does that fit in the wider Amey group?

Amey is organised into five operating divisions: Inter-Urban (road and rail), Built Environment (chiefly FM), Local Government, Logistics (plant and fleet) and Consulting (design, traffic modelling, environmental services, etc),

You worked for years as a civils contractor, but then moved to Amey, a company that does not build anything now. Why did you want that change?

As a civils contractor, our lifeblood was the next road that the Highways Agency was building. But then I started getting interested in other approaches to tackling transport congestion.

We're not going to see another major road-building programme. The philosophy is going to be: make more out of what we've got. And that means better traffic management, informing the travelling public better, increasing rail capacity with longer platforms - none of which involve building over any more green belt. You can do more than just physical construction to improve the journey experience.

So if that's the future, where is Amey positioning itself?

If you look at our MAC (Managing Agent / Contractor) contracts, we are already running information systems, putting up video screens in service stations, operating the network control centres.

On the Highways Network we manage both the technology systems and the hard assets and I believe we have a lot to offer the recently announced Managed Motorway Programme.

We could do more though, depending on the client. For example, when I drive down the M40, I pass a sign for Warwick Parkway station (on the Chiltern Line). Wouldn't it be sensible to have a sign on the M40 saying how many parking spaces there are at the station, so that if the traffic is bad on the motorway, people could park up and get the train?

Are your clients moving that way, do you think?

Yes, I believe so, certainly on roads. Look at the Highways Agency tagline: 'Safe roads, reliable journeys, informed travellers.'

They are very focused on 'delivering outcomes', as demonstrated by the MACs. In the past, methods were dictated to us now, we have more control over the methods we employ to deliver a specified outcome.

The results of the M42 managed motorway pilot (opening up the hard shoulder using signalling on overhead gantries) were very positive, and they've since awarded the second phase of this project. So that is certainly in their thinking.

What about rail - the HA has always seemed ahead on procurement thinking.

I think we can offer more to Network Rail. We're the second biggest rail consultancy in the country, and we do delivery too, but we don't get enough chance to join the two together very often.

Capacity enhancements is a big growth area for rail - again, it comes back to making better use of our existing infrastructure. That means platform extensions, resignalling, there is also a big electricifaction programme.

However, we are working with Network Rail to see how together we can produce ever more effective results and outcomes. More transparency and consistency in delivery programs will help us to plan our resource more efficiently.

You're involved with CECA still, as chairman of external affairs. How's that going?

The bigger players are doing ok, but there's obviously a lot of pain at the small end.

I think we need to encourage the SMEs to subcontract on the big civils jobs, but CECA doesn't promote the fact that this work is available. For example, there are 20 to 25 sub £500k civils jobs a year on any one MAC, and many of the MAC contractors subcontract them. However, I hardly ever hear from civils SMEs regarding this work.

The SMEs also need to realise that there will be civils work as part of the managed motorway program the perceptions is that there isn't it. Phase one of the Birmingham ATM contract had around £54m of civils work, nearly half the total cost, doing work like gantry bases and laybys.

There's going to be a different kind of work coming through in future, and you've got to adapt your business accordingly.

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Steve Withers CV

• Age 50.
• Born Blackheath, West Midlands.
• Graduated in civil engineering, 1979.
• First job with Marples Ridgeway 1979-87.
• Worked for Christiani Nielsen on Cairo Wastewater Works, 1987-91.
• Joined Birse Civils 1991, eventually becoming regional managing director (Midlands).
• Joined Amey as head of strategic highways, 2006.
• Appointed managing director of Inter-Urban, 2007.

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Three things you didn't know about Steve Withers

• Season ticket holder at West Bromwich Albion.
• Big fan of The Boss, aka Bruce Springsteen.
• His son has just started civil engineering at university (Steve says: "I'm doing my bit for the industry's future!")