High Speed 2 (Economic Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Mair Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mair (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests and draw attention to the register. As Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Cambridge and a practising consultant, I have given specialist engineering advice to HS2. I also chair the Science Advisory Council at the Department for Transport and I am a former president of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

The report by this House’s Economic Affairs Committee identified three principal areas of concern for HS2: priorities for rail investment, the process used to evaluate the project and cost reduction considerations. I will focus principally on engineering cost-reduction considerations but will first make some more general points.

There is undoubtedly a growing need for additional rail capacity in the UK. The population will be around 75 million by 2050, nine million more than today’s figure. Rail passenger numbers have increased very significantly in the past decade and are expected to increase substantially in the coming years. To meet this expected demand, there is a pressing need for increased investment in new rail capacity as well as investment in existing routes.

We also have a legally binding commitment to deliver net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. That presents a major challenge. In 2013, the transport sector accounted for 20% of carbon emissions. By 2018, this had grown to 33% of all CO₂ emissions, with the majority of these originating from road transport. Electrified rail is significantly cleaner than existing road traffic.

HS2 and the associated improved transport network will provide the much-needed additional rail capacity for the country, encouraging a shift from road to rail. The considerably improved rail network will contribute to a significant reduction in CO₂ emissions by discouraging car use and putting more freight on rail.

There have recently been various important reviews of and reports about HS2. There is the Douglas Oakervee review which, although leaked, has not yet been made public, although the dissenting report by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has been. In addition, there is the advice, HS2 Chairman’s Stocktake, by the chairman of HS2, Allan Cook, made public in September 2019. It makes the very important point that HS2 is an integral part of the plans of Transport for the North, Northern Powerhouse Rail and Midlands Connect. It highlights that HS2 will provide 50% of the lines needed by Northern Powerhouse Rail.

Crucially, Allan Cook’s advice makes it clear that the budget and target schedule for the HS2 programme have to date proved unrealistic. Of course, it is most important that this be addressed as a matter of urgency. But he also emphasised that at the same time, the benefits of HS2 have been understated, particularly the future societal impacts, together with wider industrial, regenerative and economic impacts.

Allan Cook’s recommended areas of further work include three key points. One is to consider more effective ways to capture the wider strategic and long-term benefits for the country’s transport system. A second is to develop improved commercial models that drive the right outcomes. The third concerns cost reductions. I would now like to focus on this third area of cost reduction considerations. Allan Cook’s advice is for HS2 to continue to develop further cost efficiencies, including challenging standards and specifications. It is cost efficiencies and the challenging of existing standards and specifications that I wish to address.

The construction sector deal for the industrial strategy has three key strategic themes. All three have the potential to transform the construction industry, improving productivity and reducing costs. The first is digital: delivering better, more certain outcomes using digital technologies, particularly building information modelling. This involves constructing digital twins of infrastructure at the outset, before the real construction actually begins. The digital revolution is affecting all areas of our lives. Digitalisation can also bring dramatic changes for infrastructure construction, leading to efficiencies and cost savings.

The second construction sector deal strategic theme is manufacturing: improving productivity, quality and safety by increasing the use of off-site manufacture. This House’s Select Committee on Science and Technology undertook an inquiry into off-site manufacturing and construction in 2018. Our report concluded that there is a compelling case for the widespread use of off-site manufacturing to reduce costs and improve productivity. Components of infrastructure can be manufactured under factory-controlled conditions and then assembled on site. It would be highly desirable for HS2 to adopt off-site manufacturing in as many ways as possible.

The third construction sector deal strategic theme is performance. Here, there is considerable potential for cost reduction. Innovative sensor technologies, combined with data analytics, can lead to significant cost savings. The current practice has been to rely on overly conservative, overly robust designs to ensure against any uncertainty and provide safeguards against any potential problems throughout the future design life. However, much of this current practice is now out of date. Construction is one of the few engineering sectors in which, over the years, there have been very few advances and improvements in standards and specifications. It is a particularly conservative industry. This can now change. The opportunities for much smarter and more economic construction now exist.

By installing sensors in critical parts of new infrastructure such as HS2, there are opportunities for significantly more economic designs. Data generated by sensors now enables continuous monitoring of the infrastructure throughout its operational life. Sensors mean that we will now be able to measure exactly how a tunnel, bridge, embankment, slope or railway line performs throughout its lifetime. It means that the performance of the infrastructure can be continuously monitored, just as in an aeroplane or a motor car. This provides information for more rational maintenance and repair strategies: a concrete slab may not need to be as thick; piles may not need to be as long; cut slopes may not need to be as shallow.

All that means moving on from overly conservative, overly robust designs. Crucially, it should enable designers to challenge existing standards and specifications, many of which have not changed for decades. The very distinguished scientist Lord Kelvin famously said:

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”


He was so right. More take-up of innovative sensor technologies, data analytics and artificial intelligence is needed for HS2. These can certainly lead to significant economies.

My final point is that the three themes of digital, off-site manufacturing and performance are the new modern methods of construction. They are key parts of the industrial strategy’s construction sector deal and must be adopted right across our infrastructure. Indeed, they are beginning to be adopted by HS2, but there is potential for much more. The Government announced the construction sector deal in their industrial strategy White Paper, published in November 2017. One of its key objectives was a 33% reduction in the cost of construction and whole-life cost of assets. With smart and innovative engineering, there is still considerable scope for cost reduction for HS2.

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (Science and Technology Report)

Lord Mair Excerpts

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mair (CB)]

My Lords, it was a privilege to be on the Select Committee producing this report under the wise and excellent chairmanship of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne. I begin by declaring my relevant interests: I am chairman of the Department for Transport’s Science Advisory Council and the current president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and I also head the Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction at Cambridge University.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, has already referred to the recently published Industrial Strategy White Paper, which states that:

“The government wants to see fully self-driving cars, without a human operator, on UK roads by 2021”.


This is a bold ambition. It has to be asked: how realistic is it to put fully driverless cars on the public roads within four years? Our report addressed a range of issues to be resolved before we anticipate the widespread use of driverless cars on our roads. I will briefly comment on four: congestion, data sharing, skills and research.

My first point relates to congestion, which has been referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. Many witnesses told our committee that CAVs for the roads sector are expected to improve traffic conditions and reduce congestion. But this is not obvious. It is likely that the theoretical potential of CAVs to reduce traffic congestion varies, depending on the level of vehicle autonomy and the proportion of CAVs on the roads. We were unable to say with any certainty what the impact on congestion will be. We thought it possible to imagine a situation of total gridlock as CAVs cautiously crawl around city centres. The Government acknowledged this uncertainty in their response to our report, highlighting the need for research to understand the possible impacts of CAVs on congestion on our road networks.

In the future, driverless cars could well bring a wide uptake of personal mobility as a service—one of the great potential benefits. In which case, car ownership could very substantially reduce, and city streets would no longer have nearly as many privately owned cars. This point was also made by the noble Lord, Lord Rees of Ludlow. This could be highly beneficial for our city road networks; a widespread absence of parked cars would certainly reduce congestion.

My second point relates to data sharing. Our report highlighted that it is essential that any data gathered from CAVs is used in accordance with data protection law. However, we pointed out that the meaning of personal data is unclear in the context of CAVs. It will be important to achieve privacy for individuals and communities while also using data to achieve efficiency and safety of CAV operations. But data relating to an individual’s vehicle on position, speed and performance on the road cannot be regarded as entirely personal. Such data is needed for public benefit if a CAV system is to operate effectively as a whole. Good data governance will therefore be required to secure appropriate protection of personal information while safely using and linking open and non-sensitive data. Sharing data for the public good means that some datasets are public, while others will be available only to certain parties. Distinctions will need to be made between commercially sensitive data owned by technology providers and open data.

This important point is also highlighted in the National Infrastructure Commission’s report Data for the Public Good, launched at the Institution of Civil Engineers last week. The report emphasises that data protection is fundamental to the development and successful deployment of smart city models and functions—this of course also applies to CAVs. The data governance review recently produced by the Royal Society and British Academy addresses the same issue. Public confidence in regulation and governance of data will be key to the successful exploitation of CAV technologies.

My third point relates to skills. Our report highlighted the urgent need to close the engineering and digital skills gap to ensure that the UK can benefit from the emerging CAV technologies. Last year, the Transport Systems Catapult published a report entitled, Intelligent Mobility Skills Strategy: Growing New Markets in Smarter Transport. It concluded that, in the wider intelligent mobility sector, which encompasses CAV technologies,

“The UK faces a potential skills gap of 742,000 people by 2025”.


This is a huge skills gap. The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, also published last year, echoed these findings. Cranfield University told our committee that the shortage of engineers the UK faces threatens the development of CAV technology and the creation of applications for CAV. This point was also made in evidence from Professor Paul Newman of Oxford University. He questioned the effectiveness of the UK’s education system in delivering people with the right skills for the CAV sector. He said:

“I cannot overstate the importance of this: we need about 10,000 more engineers a year. We need to plough money into universities to teach information engineering, data engineering and software”.


In their response to our report, the Government acknowledged the need for investment right across the education and training pipeline—in universities, the further education sector and schools—to deliver people with the right skills for the CAV sector. My question to the Minister is, is enough being done to ensure that the potentially very large engineering and digital skills gap will be closed in the coming years?

My final point relates to research. The recent government announcement of the launch of MERIDIAN —a new co-ordination hub for CAV technologies testing—is to be welcomed. This important new initiative is part of the automotive sector deal recently announced in the Industrial Strategy White Paper. It will bring the automotive sector and academia together to form a cluster of excellence in autonomous vehicle testing and research.

As mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, the Government plan to continue to support scientific research in AI robotics and related information technology at academic institutions. This too is to be welcomed. We need to ensure that the UK continues to have a world-leading research base in these crucial areas. While this type of research is vital for the success of CAVs for the UK, we must not forget the need for research on human interactions with CAVs—in other words, the social and behavioural questions relating to CAVs, most of which remain largely unanswered. Our report highlighted this and the Government have responded very positively. Research to understand the attitudes of the public to CAVs will be vital, particularly in the context of mixed fleets of driverless cars and traditional cars. Predictions suggest that we will have mixed fleets for at least 20 years. There are those who will always want to drive their cars: we will always have “Mr Toads”. With driverless and traditional cars together on the roads, will the public be prepared to trust and accept autonomous technologies? Without a high degree of public acceptance, the huge potential for driverless cars on our roads will not materialise.