Where’s the ‘golden thread’ for roadbuilding?
Roads are vital national infrastructure, carrying millions daily, driving economic productivity and embodying billions in public investment. Yet the sector often lacks quality data, hindering lifespan and performance tracking and making it easier to choose cheap over durable, green solutions. This must change to meet carbon goals, boost resilience and ensure long-term value.
Meanwhile, the ‘golden thread’ – a digital record of an asset’s design, materials and management across its lifecycle – is transforming built environment transparency under the Building Safety Act. Dr Paul Phillips, Technical Director at Associated Asphalt asks: if buildings now demand traceable records from design to maintenance, why not roads?
In 2018, the Hackitt Report concluded that the UK’s building regulations and fire safety system were not fit for purpose, exposing deep-rooted systematic failure and a widespread lack of accountability. It described a culture in which cost-cutting often took precedence, and where responsibility across design, construction, and management was frequently unclear.
In response, the government introduced a ‘golden thread’ requirement as part of wider reforms to building safety. The remit is to ensure that all stakeholders – across specification, installation, management, and ongoing maintenance – have access to a reliable, continuous digital record of the materials, decisions and processes that affect safety.
Why, you may ask, does this matter for roadbuilding? Though of course, roadbuilding is a different beast entirely, the reality is that it still faces many of the same challenges around fragmented oversight and lifecycle accountability.
Stumbling blocks
As most industry professionals will already know, the current level of data available in the roadbuilding sector falls short. The Department for Transport (DfT) has acknowledged that its local road condition data is poor and outdated, leaving significant gaps in understanding network quality.
Visibility across the Strategic Road Network (SRN) is better, with National Highways operating thousands of automatic traffic counters alongside DfT datasets and other monitoring systems. However, data gaps still occur due to sensor failures, and concerns remain over consistency and comparability because multiple systems and methods are used.
Of course, that is not to assign blame. The UK road network is one of the most complex in the world, shaped by high demand, historic development and infrastructure never designed for today’s traffic volumes. Ongoing rescheduling pressures and funding constraints add further complexity. But it is to say that, clearly, the current way of doing things isn’t working.
This March saw the so-called ‘pothole plague’ reach an all-time low, as new research from the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) revealed a backlog of repairs across England and Wales of £18.6 billion, despite councils filling in about 1.9 million holes last year.
Though our highways are generally in better condition, research shows they generally pale in comparison to other road networks around the world. More than half (57 per cent) of drivers say there are fewer potholes on European motorways compared to the UK. Drivers also often report that European motorway surfaces are smoother and quieter than those in the UK.
Clearly then, there is scope for much improvement, particularly when it comes to looking toward the bigger, long-term picture and moving away from temporary, reactive repairs (like filling individual potholes) towards proactive, long-term assets.
Knowledge is power
So, what is to be done? Though there can be no silver bullet, I believe that greater visibility holds part of the answer.
Take a look at any one of a number of leading industries – manufacturing, aerospace, advanced engineering – and a common theme emerges. Decisions are increasingly driven by high-quality, real-time data. Components are tracked, performance is monitored continuously and maintenance is planned using integrated digital systems that link design intent with operational reality.
Applied to roadbuilding this type of approach could be transformative. Imagine if, akin to the ‘golden thread’ model, we were able to carry a continuous, digital record of an asset from design through construction and into maintenance – capturing not just what was built, but how, with what materials, under what conditions and how it has performed over time.
Executed well, this would enable a more intelligent, efficient and sustainable approach to asset management. With full lifecycle visibility, the road network could be managed as a connected system rather than a series of isolated interventions – supporting better planning, more targeted maintenance, and clearer insight into performance and carbon impact.
It would also help bring sustainability strategies to life. More than ever, operators are under growing pressure to reduce carbon and energy use without compromising the quality, speed or cost of the operation. Better data would make it easier to assess the whole-life performance of different materials and methods, enabling clearer comparison of the long-term savings and benefits of lower-carbon alternatives. With better knowledge extending far beyond the immediate job at hand, decision-making could shift meaningfully, prioritising considered, durable sustainable options over reactive, short-term fixes.
The road ahead
Rome wasn’t built in a day and there will certainly still be a long road ahead if we are to establish full big picture visibility into roadbuilding and maintenance here in the UK.
But we must remember that most of today’s road building schemes have similar goals; they want to improve safety, increase resilience, deliver better long-term value and, increasingly where possible, support wider environmental objectives.
Through better data availability, I believe operators could arm themselves with the intelligence needed to achieve all of this and more. Therefore, looking ahead, it is my hope, that as an industry we begin to pivot at pace to large-scale datafication in an era where knowledge really is power.
Paul Phillips
Associated Asphalt Contracting Ltd is a high-quality civil engineering company specialising in highways, airfield, and road construction.
Founded in 2014, the UK-based company has an established reputation for its flexibility, reliability and assured performance in high-risk environments, with clients including National Highways, Heathrow Airport, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, and the Ministry of Defence.
Services include contracting teams, material design and material manufacture using bespoke asphalt mixing plants. The company is certified to ISO 45001, ISO 14001, ISO 9001, and Pas2080 and is underpinned by a skilled and competent workforce.