Transport Charity, Rees Jeffreys Road Fund is interested in exploring how “System of Systems” thinking can scope and, if possible find solutions, for the multi-faceted challenge of sustaining roads infrastructure.
75 years ago its founder, William Rees Jeffreys set out his own version of a system for road development and maintenance in his book The King’s Highway The King’s Highway – Rees Jeffreys Road Fund.
Rees Jeffreys Road Fund believes that if he were alive today, William Rees Jeffreys would be interested in a Systems of Systems (SoS) approach, given the facets of rapidly improving safety, impacts of climate change, reduced funding, short term political focus on potholes and skill shortages yet with the opportunities of smart technology, AI, automation, modal shift and new data sets amongst many others.
Ultimately the new thinking might form the basis of a modern sequel to The King’s Highway.
Consultation:
To help develop its thinking, the Fund is inviting suggestions about how this idea might be taken forwards, welcoming 2-page submissions suggesting how the topic could be tackled.
The suggested 2-page submission should cover:
- Your ideas on the above – please be creative and expansive but also be brutal on the concept if it is wrong.
- What might need to be covered and how – and what to leave out?
- What would be needed to engage with stakeholders – or need Rees Jeffreys Road Fund help to do so? How might SoS thinking be explained to stakeholders who haven’t experienced it?
- An outline budget or range of budgets and timescales that would enable delivery of a product or outcome that could be used to effect a change in our we sustain our roads in the UK today. You might suggest a phased approach, in which case please indicate a budget range for each phase. (As a guide, Rees Jeffreys Road Fund Trustees believe a quality piece of work could be achieved for £50,000).
The Fund wants to cover all roads and all road users but is interested in hearing your views on priorities. It would like to achieve a final product that could be used to add real value and support practical achievement of change in how roads in the UK are sustained. (It is not interested in an academic or theoretical exercise for its own sake.)
Please email your 2-page submission to secretary@reesjeffreys.co.uk by 8pm Friday 15th May 2026.
(Image – William Rees Jeffreys: The King’s Highway, Rees Jeffreys Road Fund)