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Transport Scotland contracts for the management, maintenance and operation of the trunk road network contain highly prescriptive requirements to keep drainage assets working and trunk road traffic moving safely. For example, the contracts contain annual routine and cyclic maintenance requirements that are designed to ensure drainage assets are working and checked for deterioration. Transport Scotland contracts also contain requirements for Operating Companies to complete weekly driven inspections of all trunk roads to identify safety critical defects. If any are identified, they are required to address the issue or make it safe within set timescales. In addition to this, Transport Scotland's Operating Companies are required to maintain Disruption Risk Management Registers to identify vulnerable locations subject to frequent disruption. Where such sites are identified, the Operating Companies are required to investigate the issue and look to deliver solutions to improve journey time reliability.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

The member may wish to contact the British Transport Police and ScotRail for this information.

Current best practice for the management of large infrastructure networks is set out in the international standard for the management of assets ISO 55001, which requires organisations to adopt a formal asset management approach. Transport Scotland is the first UK trunk road authority to reach this standard demonstrating that public funds are being spent in the most efficient and effective manner.

We have developed and implemented a formal value management process for roads structural maintenance schemes for assessing the benefits of undertaking maintenance and the associated risks of not undertaking maintenance. Each scheme in the one-year maintenance programme is scored against a range of criteria:

a. Safety – to maintain a safe network and assess the level of risk to the road user. Those schemes that are safety critical or have a high level of risk will have the highest priority scoring.

b. Journey Time Reliability – to assess the level of risk to the service, e.g. route availability.

c. Environment and Sustainability – to assess the impact of a scheme on the environment, noise reduction, carbon factor, recycling and sustainability.

d. Value for Money – to consider the economic efficiency of the scheme and seek to minimise the whole life costs (i.e. invest now to deliver savings later).

The scores are used to determine which schemes should remain in the current year and which can be deferred until the following year. This ensures that those parts of the network with the greatest need are addressed and that the available funds are allocated in a fair, objective and transparent manner.

The prioritisation of bridges and structures maintenance follows as similar process with a Value Management Risk Approach using the following four criteria:

a. Safety – the overall effects on the end user, including fatalities and injuries that would be caused by a failure.

b. Functionality – the impact of a loss or reduction in service. This may be considered at route, structure or component level.

c. Environment – Environmental impacts, such as pollution caused through traffic delay, the sensitivity of the route/area, etc.

d. Sustainability – of both expenditure and workload, where the aim is to reach a state of steady expenditure and workload, avoiding the build-up of a backlog of unavoidable, essential work by doing effective, targeted preventative maintenance.

The tool includes work identified from inspections, structural capacity assessments, “At-Risk” supports, sub-standard parapets, flood risk, scour risk, environment and local factors for all structure types. It does not yet include other risk programmes, such as hidden defects or safety-critical fixings.

The mainline of the A90 trunk road has been closed to facilitate road maintenance on 12 occasions over the following 5 full financial years:

2019-20 - 0

2020-21 - 2

2021-22 - 0

2022-23 - 5

2023-24 - 5

These closures took place overnight and averaged 13.5 hours per night in duration.

Additionally, there has been 53 slip road closures on the A90 trunk road over the same period. These overnight closures averaged 12.5 hours in duration. During these closures the mainline A90 remained open.

The Scottish Government published the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2) in December 2022. STPR2 prioritises maintaining and safely operating existing assets over targeted infrastructure improvements. STPR2 did not recommend any major upgrades to the A90 trunk road. Instead, Recommendation 30 noted that the A90 Perth to Aberdeen (excluding the A90 Kingsway through Dundee) as an example of locations for potential future road safety improvements. Separately, Recommendation 32, identified the proposal for an integrated transport plan to be developed for the A90 Kingsway through Dundee.

In addition, the Scottish Government remains committed to delivering a new grade-separated junction on the A90 at Laurencekirk as part of the package of additional investment alongside the Aberdeen City Region Deal.

Transport Scotland has been taking forward the necessary design and assessment work, and the project is currently going through the statutory authorisation process, having recently published supplementary draft Orders for formal comment.

As with all infrastructure projects, delivery of the Laurencekirk scheme can only commence when the relevant statutory authorisation powers to do so have been secured. Following completion of the statutory authorisation process we will then be in a position to set a timetable for delivery of the scheme in line with available budgets.

All transport expenditure supports economic activity and development. This ranges from the maintenance and enhancement of the road, rail, air and ferry networks and our bridges, the impact of our sustainable travel and low carbon schemes, the support for public transport users through concessionary fares, the funding of rail services and bus grants to allow easier access to employment and support to local authorities.

Funds are allocated in line with the 4 priorities within the National Transport Strategy of which Inclusive Economic Growth is a key component and the vast majority of expenditure is around maintaining and running the existing system that is crucial for economic development. However, all transport interventions have impacts across all the 4 priorities and interact with each other and some projects are funded over multiple years and as such, there is no rigorous way of determining which expenditure in any given period has a primary focus on economic development.

There is a total of 140 overbridges and overpasses (including footbridges on the A90 trunk road and within the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Road / Balmeddie to Tipperty Project boundary. All are in an acceptable condition. They are subjected to regular inspections to determine the integrity of the structures and identify any necessary repairs. Transport Scotland's Operating Company, Amey, has ongoing prioritised works at the structures below:

• A90 Glencarse overpass was struck by a vehicle in March 2023 and repairs were completed on 21 December.
• A90 Finavon Bridge sustained storm damage during Storm Babet in October 2023, work has been ongoing to facilitate repairs

As carriageways are designed for a specific period (a ‘design life’) based on the predicted numbers of vehicles passing over that section over a specific number of years, increased traffic volumes (particularly commercial vehicles) can accelerate their deterioration. Traffic volumes on the A90 have risen by 6% over the last five years. This change in traffic has been factored into our most recent calculation of the Road Condition Index which is used to identify where detailed engineering investigations should be focused in order to determine maintenance requirements.

Over the last 5 full financial years there has been the following number of surface repairs on the A90 trunk road:

The following table presents the total number of accidents on the A90 for 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. However, the information on the total number accidents for 2024 is only available up to the date stated in the following table.