(image source: LCRIG, 2023 festival)
The LCRIG Innovation & Learning Festival was held at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, on the 2nd and 3rd of July 2024. Aimed to showcase innovative and collaborative highways maintenance and transport technology, this is the third such event held by LCRIG, the Local Council Roads Innovation Group.
It was a well-attended event, reports Thermal Road Repairs’ business development manager Gabriella Balaguera. “It was a great chance to catch up with people,” she says. “Lots of local authorities are looking for innovations that help them do things differently or to improve on their processes, especially things that will help them meet their carbon reduction goals.”
Despite the rain, there were plenty of demonstrations for attendees to witness. Among the more ground-breaking was ARRES PREVENT, a prototype robot aimed to detect and seal cracks in roads, created by tech start-up Robotiz3d. Boston Dynamics’ robot dog, currently under trial by National Highways, BAM Ritchies and AECOM to gather survey data, caught Gabriella’s eye:
“It was walking around the room itself and greeting people,” she says. “Quite impressive.”
Drones featured heavily too, with examples of how they can be used to capture various forms of information more quickly and efficiently. KOREC demonstrated drones designed for high-resolution imagery and LiDAR capture and others designed to carry out survey work; Coventry City Council and VESOS showed how drones might be used to attend emergency incidents.
National Highways was one of the exhibitors in the LCRIG, TFF and National Highways Pavilion. The authority’s research, development and innovation director Dr Joanna White is a member of LCRIG’s Infrastructure Innovation Board. Technology showcased by National Highways included wall-climbing robotics, one of the winning entries from the Accelerator Programme run with Kier and connected Places Catapult. The robots climb walls to clean off graffiti or apply graffiti preventative paints, reducing the risks to workers of working at height.
Of course, funding was a common topic of conversation too. “Many councils talked about budget constraints and difficulties,” says Gabriella. “That’s why it’s really important for them to find new ways of doing things, which give them more for their money.”
Gabriella was also able to touch base with some of the local authorities with whom Thermal Road Repairs is planning trials in the near future. As well as emitting around 85% less carbon than traditional pothole fixing techniques, our technology produces seamless repairs that won’t fail again and can be delivered in less time.
Thermal Road Repairs also has more innovations in the pipeline, currently in the R&D phase. Although it was a bit early to talk about them at this Innovation & Learning Festival, we hope we can share news of them soon…
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Thermal Road Repairs: Decarbonising the asphalt repair industry
High output. Low emission. Zero waste. Permanent solution.
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