Over the last 12 months, TMS Engineers Harminder Aulak, Lee Williams and Mike Fuller have been busy carrying out Stage 3 Road Safety Audits on the last section of the A465 Heads of the Valleys project in South Wales. The 11mile (17.7km) section of brand new dual carriageway runs from Hirwaun to Dowlais Top and replaces the existing single carriageway road. TMS are extremely proud to have been involved in this project.
The final phase of the £2 billion Heads of the Valleys Road upgrade programme has now officially opened, marking the end of the project. The Welsh Government said it marked the completion of “one of the UK’s largest and most technically challenging road projects”. The £1.4 billion Section 5 and 6 Dowlais to Hirwaun final phase links the Valleys, South and West Wales to the English Midlands and beyond.
This has been one of the largest road safety projects TMS has been involved with in recent years. Since the summer of 2024, they have carried out 41 separate visits and produced 53 reports. The process involved walking the majority of the new roads before they were fully opened to traffic and they estimate that their Engineers have walked a staggering 50km along the mainline, grade separated junctions and side roads.
Heads of the valley bridge
The programme was demanding due to the short time frames and deadlines to produce the audit reports before the “Permits to Use” were issued to the Contractor (as part of the phased opening). Though challenging, TMS delivered in terms of arranging the audits (with the Contractor, Welsh Government Representatives, South Wales Police and Local Highway Authorities), inspecting the sites in both daylight and night-time conditions and producing the Stage 3 reports.
They were satisfied to see that the vast majority of their recommendations to improve road safety and reduce the risk of future collisions were carried out promptly by the contractor. Many of the recommendations involved lower cost measures, such as improving roadside protection, ensuring street furniture was forgiving in the event of a collision (passively safe), road signs, markings and reflective studs provided optimum performance and facilities for pedestrians, cyclists and equestrians were safe to use.
TMS are confident that many of their recommended measures would produce a high economic rate of return in terms of collision savings, especially when fatal and serious casualties are taken into account.
Over the time TMS worked on this project, their auditors built excellent relationships with their client, the Police and various other third parties.
Andrew Carter – South Wales Police said:
“The A465 Heads of the Valley Scheme was the largest civil engineering scheme to have been undertaken in Wales for well over thirty years. TMS were commissioned to carry out Stage 3 Road Safety Audits for the entire scheme with the lead auditor being Hammy Aulak and his colleague Lee Williams.
“From the very start of the 40 plus audits completed on the scheme, the SWP Traffic Management Unit struck a good working relationship with both Hammy and Lee, and the combination of design knowledge and required specifications, coupled with over fifty years’ experience of the SWP officers, in relation to collision investigation and road user behaviour, in my opinion made a formidable partnership.
“As a team I believe we identified some unique methods to offset any potential safety issues, which in fairness were rectified by the construction company and implemented quickly. Hammy was always prepared to look at any potential safety issues identified by myself and my colleague Ian Stephen and include them in his reports. We also found the expertise of both Hammy and Lee very helpful and their depth of knowledge and will be included in our annual PDR’s.
“I firmly believe that what has been constructed is probably one of the best and safest sections of carriageway in Wales thanks to TMS with input from ourselves. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend TMS for any future schemes, and it was a pleasure and enjoyable learning curve for the SWP Team.”
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(Images – TMS)