The Highways and Bridges Group in Cardiff has 25 years' experience in the highways market sector and undertakes work for a wide variety of clients across geographical boundaries. Clients include the National Assembly for Wales, the Highways Agency, the Northern Ireland Roads Service, the National Roads Authority (Republic of Ireland), local highway authorities, and increasingly design–build and DBFO/PPP contractor teams. The group employs a multidisciplinary approach in order to capitalise on available opportunities and draws on skills from within Arup and elsewhere.

The group is split roughly equally between the disciplines of highways and bridges, and draws on geotechnical, environment, and drainage specialists from other parts of the office to form a total capability at any one time of between 40 and 50. The size of the group allows us to respond to opportunities as they arise in a timely and efficient manner, and also enables us to work on large-scale highway projects such as the M4 Relief Road (£300m), the Birmingham Northern Relief Road (£400m), and the Waterford Bypass (£70m).

Current projects within this sector reflect our diverse workload. We continue to tender for, and to win, work with important clients on major trunk road and motorway projects. As well as major projects, we have an extensive portfolio of jobs on contracts worth less than £10m, numbering some 30 projects in the last few years. We have good links with the local highway authorities, which has assisted us in obtaining many adoption agreements (S278/S38) such as for the Rhoose Point Development and the University Hospital of Wales access roads.

The group is also the recognised skill leader within Arup for highway safety audits. We have completed more than 100 audits and are currently undertaking the Stage 2 Audit of the Birmingham Northern Relief Road, which consists of some 2,000 drawings.

The group has a long history of project-managing schemes as the client's representative. We are at the forefront of developing new ways of procurement, including innovative uses of the New Engineering Contract. Currently, our project management portfolio includes seven schemes, totalling £37m, two of which are in Northern Ireland.