This year, Scotland’s largest road, transport and mobility focused event, Road Expo, took place at Glasgow’s Scottish Event Campus (SEC) on Tuesday 28th November and Wednesday 29th November 2023. This two-day event, in partnership with Transport Scotland, is co-located with Bridges Scotland and brings together Scottish Local Authorities, Government, and Commercial Suppliers. 

The event opened with an address from Minister for Transport, Fiona Hyslop MSP who gave an inspiring speech on Scotland’s ambitions for the transport industry and the Scottish Government’s 20-year transport strategy. Both events then proceeded with insightful talks from experts, including three Amey employees, who demonstrated solutions to allow these ambitions to be met, with a great concentration on climate change and achieving net zero. 

Day One concluded with a presentation from Amey’s Innovation Project Manager, Lauren SeBlonka. Partnered with Scott Walker, Asset Services Manager of North Lanarkshire Council, Lauren spoke of the ADEPT Live Labs 2, Centre of Excellence for Decarbonising Local Roads UK project. The principle focus of this project is to establish innovations in decarbonised roads materials and trial them in Scotland. This will be achieved through the creation of a digital knowledge bank where innovations can be shared and grow. The Centre of Excellence will be a source that Local Authorities and Private, Public, and Academic sectors can utilise to come together to accelerate the implementation of low-carbon materials. 

"I was delighted to introduce the Scottish road sector to the Centre of Excellence for Decarbonising Roads at Road Expo Scotland, a Live Labs 2 project that Amey is delivering in partnership with North Lanarkshire Council, Transport for West Midlands and Colas to accelerate the transition to net zero. Through our partnerships spanning public, private and academic sectors, we are creating a live trial ecosystem, carbon evaluation process and online knowledge bank to enable material innovation to flourish, and we look forward to working alongside Scottish local highways authorities to achieve this." - Lauren SeBlonka, Innovation Project Manager 

Day Two at Bridges Scotland commenced with a presentation on the Existing and Emerging Scour Monitoring Methods from Principal Project Director, Effie Koursari. Effie explained the main types of Scour and the current direct and indirect monitoring methods available for these. Effie then outlined a new Scour prediction model that is currently in development, which aspires to be more effective. 

As well as looking into future innovations, the Bridges Scotland event reflected on previous projects, with Project Director, Angus Bruce, delivering a detailed presentation on Amey’s work on the repair of the A77 Carlock Wall. Angus shared the background to the replacement of this structure as well as the engineering challenges faced during the project. Angus then outlined the improvements implemented by Amey to enhance the quality of the wall. 

“It was a scheme Amey inherited when we commenced the NMC SW contract. It subsequently required further design and additional works due to unexpected ground conditions. This additional work was designed, checked, procured, and constructed, which then allowed the completion of the original granular Earth retaining structure. Although the project subsequently took longer to complete, the final solution was an excellent result.” - Angus Bruce, Project Director 

During the two-day exhibition, members of our team took the time to attend various sessions, widening our understanding of the potential impacts and innovations involving climate change and the roads sector. Road Expo provided us with the opportunity to enhance our insight into existing and future skills gaps and explore the efforts needed to resolve this issue. In addition, broadening our knowledge in energy transition on our journey to net zero, and share our developments with industry partners.