Severe Weather
Under the second item, we have an opportunity to take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, John Swinney, on issues arising from the severe weather that Scotland has been experiencing.
I point out that in a change from the papers that were circulated to members, the cabinet secretary is now joined by Jim Barton, chief road engineer and director of trunk road and bus operations, and Chief Constable Kevin Smith, who appears not as a Government official but on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland. I welcome everyone to the committee and invite the cabinet secretary to make some opening remarks, if he would so wish.
I would, convener.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee. I do so subsequent to the resignation of the transport minister, Stewart Stevenson, and in light of the fact that the new transport minister was not in office during many of the challenging periods that we faced on 5 and 6 December. I am appearing to assist the committee by providing detail about events on the 5 and 6 December; to share with the committee my observations, having taken a very close look at what happened and why; and to highlight the plans for future action that the Government is taking and which the transport minister has set out today. I am very grateful to the committee for being flexible in rearranging times to enable me to appear before the Finance Committee this afternoon.
We had a unique and unusual weather event on Monday 6 December, in which we experienced heavy, sustained and wet snow falling on already freezing surfaces following a period of sustained snowfall in the preceding week. Further snowfall was predicted during the night of Sunday 5 December, but the detailed predictions were for fairly small depths of snow of between 2 and 5cm across the central belt with the possibility of up to 10cm on higher ground.
We knew that this snow would be likely to fall during the morning rush hour, when many families who had previously been off work or school would be returning, and we knew that there would be a risk of ice. It was not expected to cause unmanageable problems across Scotland’s road network, and the trunk road operating companies had pre-treated the network overnight in line with forecast conditions and in accordance with their winter service plans.
The eventual volume of snow that fell and the rate at which it fell were way beyond what was predicted. That was confirmed in the words of the Met Office itself at 10.37 on Monday morning when it said that the band of snow
“has given more significant snow accumulations than were expected yesterday across eastern parts of the Central Belt.”
The heavier snowfall during the morning peak resulted in severe congestion across the network as a result of multiple incidents that restricted the ability of the operating companies to continue with appropriate treatment cycles of ploughing and gritting.
By mid-morning and lunch time on Monday, schools began to close and people began to leave work—clearly earlier than would have been anticipated—which added to the pressure on the as-yet uncleared morning peak. That presented further challenges for the operating companies and the police. To give the committee an idea of the scale of the challenge, I point out that according to the contract an operating company treatment cycle must be completed within two hours; on Monday, treatment cycles were taking up to 11.5 hours.
Of course, at that point there was full recognition that there were disruptions to traffic and both the operating companies and the police were fully engaged in responding to incidents, many of which they were able to deal with. It is clear, however, that by mid-afternoon the cumulative effects of five key traffic incidents on our relatively compact central motorway network were leading to significant numbers of people becoming stranded for significant periods.
There were five key incidents that occurred across Scotland’s road network last Monday. At 9.21 am, the A80 northbound at Castlecary was affected by a broken-down heavy goods vehicle causing considerable congestion. At 11.49 am, the Forth road bridge closure resulted in considerable congestion on approach roads; at 12 pm, the M77 southbound at Malletsheugh was blocked by HGVs struggling to climb a steep hill; at around 1.30 pm, the M8 at junction 5 was affected by the breakdown of two HGVs causing considerable congestion; and, finally, the A725 Raith interchange experienced problems throughout the day. These events, which took place during the day, intensified the problems, which were then further compounded on Monday night when temperatures plummeted, at times to below -10°C, which is the point at which salt ceases to be an effective tool for clearing ice and snow from the roads.
For example, in the early hours of 7 December, surface temperatures on the M8 at Shotts reached -9.6°C. Similarly, at Gogarburn in Edinburgh, the temperature fell to -12°C at 4 am on the morning of the 7 December. That resulted in compacted ice forming on the carriageway and, with continued low temperatures, salting remained ineffective. Ploughing was the only option, once the carriageways had been cleared of traffic. In some cases, the ice was so thick it resulted in snowplough blades breaking.
In the period since 24 November, when the Scottish Government’s resilience operation became active in relation to specific winter weather incidents, Transport Scotland, the affected police forces and the Government’s resilience team, including ministers, have been closely involved in preparations for what was clearly a very challenging prolonged period of weather.
In the aftermath of the significant incidents on the afternoon of Monday 6 December, a helpline for motorists was established and communications to the public were increased, although, as we have acknowledged, communications were deficient in the information that was supplied to members of the public at the time.
The continued efforts of the police, Transport Scotland and the trunk road operating companies throughout Monday night and into the next morning helped to resolve and unblock many of the key incidents that had occurred in the course of the previous day, although it was not possible to safely reopen the whole of the M8 until 13:15 on Wednesday 8 December.
In the process, many members of the public were inconvenienced by the disruption to the road network. The Government has made clear its regret at the inconvenience and distress that were caused to members of the public, and it has acknowledged and apologised for the failures of communication that took place.
Although there is no doubt that lessons can be and have been learned from these events, I stress to the committee that we were dealing with an extraordinary set of circumstances. Our efforts to fully mitigate the effects of the extreme weather events on 6 December were an enormous challenge.
In light of the events, the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure has this morning set out a number of particular points to be taken forward to assist in the management and communication of future events. We expect there to be deteriorating weather conditions later this week. Those steps are: storing additional salt and grit at key locations on the national trunk road network for quicker access; using traffic management resources to enable diversions where necessary; further enhancing the operating companies’ resources by adapting vehicles, such as landscaping vehicles, for clearing snow; using the option of removing trunk road and motorway central barriers to allow easy access to blocked or broken-down vehicles; working with the police to consider how Transport Scotland could stack HGVs, if conditions deteriorate, so as to keep traffic moving—and that was utilised on Monday last week; and providing the emergency response vehicles of central Scotland’s trunk road incident support service with welfare kits, so as to speed up their response.
In addition to those measures, Mr Brown will also be considering the key question of whether all first-line responders should have invoked major incident procedures during Monday 6 December, and that is something about which he will be convening discussions over the coming days.
Many challenges exist in relation to the whole question of winter maintenance, and the Government will remain focused on all those efforts. In the process of that, we should acknowledge that, in the course of Monday and Tuesday last week, many members of the public, volunteers, representatives of the emergency services and of trunk road operating companies and members of the police services worked extraordinarily hard to manage a very difficult set of circumstances and to avoid the severest of effects on individuals.
I am joined by Jim Barton, the chief roads engineer, who can assist me on some of the detail of the trunk road operating companies’ activities, and by Chief Constable Kevin Smith from Central Scotland Police, who speaks for ACPOS on transport and roads issues, in order that we can provide the committee with as much detail as it desires.
Members have a number of questions relating to different transport modes. Before that, however, I have a couple of general questions about the Government’s approach and capacity.
You spoke about the resilience operation coming into effect in late November. What is its practical capacity, for example to make late-night decisions about whether a change has to be made, whether part of the transport network will function or whether other public services will be affected—if weather patterns are changing and are not, by the early hours of the morning, what they had been expected to be in the late-night forecast the night before? What practical capacity does the Government or its agencies have to make those on-going decisions in changing conditions?
12:45
Essentially, the resilience operation operates in two modes. The first is an ordinary, non-incident mode of operation, which has a resilience representative on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in case something happens that requires a resilience response. An example of that is the terrorist incident that took place at Glasgow airport. If a completely unexpected incident happens, the resilience representative who is on call can spark the gathering of resources and capacity to deal with that incident.
The second mode is the one that was activated on 24 November, whereby the Government decides that it faces a set of circumstances in which the resilience operation needs to be activated. Once that happens, a strategic co-ordinator will be in place at civil service level within the organisation to ensure that appropriate preparations are made and that the steps that need to be taken to invoke resources and dialogue with different parties are taken—
Would that include a 24-hour information-gathering operation, so that a decision could be made in the middle of the night if weather patterns changed from what was expected?
That is correct.
Okay.
What is the Government’s general attitude to the balance between keeping everything going and trying to avoid people getting caught in a system—whether the transport system or a system in any other part of the public sector—that cannot keep going and will not operate?
That gets to the nub of the issue. If we go back a week, to the week before 6 December, there was widespread disruption to schools, many of which were closed, and many people could not get to their work. By the weekend, the milder weather meant that the transport networks, the trunk roads and many of the local roads were in a much better position than they had been in for most of the previous week. All of us will have heard feedback from members of the public, which made it clear that they wanted to get back to school, work and so on. It is understandable that that was their position.
The Government clearly wants to ensure that the country can function normally and effectively in periods of difficult weather, but we must also exercise our judgment about when that is possible and when it is not possible. A point that I have been keen to stress is that we must accept that in winter weather there will be times when it is just not possible for us to function normally. We must do all that we can to avoid such situations, but we must sometimes accept that it might not be possible for services to function. Interestingly, despite all the winter disruption that we have experienced, many services, including care and hospital services, have been able to operate extremely effectively. People have gone to tremendous trouble to get to their place of employment to provide care and support to some of the vulnerable in our society.
I accept your point that, at times, we must accept that we may be disrupted and will just have to be patient until we can get on top of the situation.
At those times, it is extremely important that a single, clear message is sent out. If people hear mixed messages, with the police, Transport Scotland or ministers telling them that it is not safe to travel, or bus operators withdrawing services so that it is not possible for them to travel, but they are told on the phone by their employer that they will lose a day’s pay if they do not turn up to work, that is completely unacceptable, is it not?
You raise a number of different points. I accept unreservedly that there must be consistent messaging. There is just no point in one element of the public sector saying one thing and another element of it saying another. I am certainly satisfied that dialogue takes place between the police and the Government, through agencies such as Transport Scotland and other bodies, with a view to coming to agreement on what messages should be sent out to the public. We must be absolutely as one in what we tell them.
Does the Government’s role extend to giving leadership including to private sector employers? Will you threaten people with consequences if it is not safe or possible to travel?
I was just coming on to that, convener. There is an issue with that, which I will put into a live context if I may. Last Wednesday morning, the agreed advice from the police and Government was that only essential travel was to be undertaken. We had had a couple of days of disruption after which people clearly wanted to get back to work. Despite the advice to make essential journeys only, the volume of traffic on the road network that day was business as usual. People have to make their own judgments based on the advice that they get. There are two key points in that regard. First, there must be absolutely consistent messaging from the public authorities to members of the public. I accept that Government must get that right, in consultation with the police at all times—or I accept that we have to get it consistent; it might not be right because weather conditions might turn out differently.
Secondly, employers should respect the advice. They should be sensitive and careful with their staff about the implications. We get into difficult territory here. Let us take the example of our desire to try to keep hospital services operational to provide care for the vulnerable in our society. We need people to staff those hospital services. On occasions over the past fortnight, some hospital staff did not go home; they stayed in hospital having made the sensible judgment that saw them say, “I may as well be here and able to help rather than stuck somewhere else.” I would encourage a process of sensitive management by employers. People should not be put in a position where they are fearful for their employment because they cannot get to work. We have all seen conditions that are pretty difficult.
Is there any evidence that employees were being threatened with disciplinary action or dismissal? I have heard this claim being made about the private sector acting in almost an Ebenezer Scrooge, Dickensian manner. It is being said that employees across the whole of Scotland were in fear of their lives if they did not turn up for work. Can we name and shame businesses that did that or is this being promoted—and quite aggressively—as a reaction from business to the emergency that took place last week? My impression is that many businesses were very sensitive to the issues that their employees faced in the circumstances.
That is my point, Mr Carlaw. I have no evidence to bring to bear. I was simply responding to the convener’s question on what the relationship between an employer to an employee should be in these weather conditions. I said two things: first, that the consistent advice of the Government and police should be followed; and, secondly, that there should be sensitivity as part of that. I have absolutely no examples to bring to committee. I was simply answering the convener’s question in as helpful a way as I could.
How did this year’s preparations differ from last year’s? What lessons have been learned?
The principal issue in relation to last winter was the preparedness of salt supplies. I think that the committee will know that in about late December or early January, salt stocks were at a very low level in Scotland. It is important to remember that, over the past two to three years, the winter has been more acute in Scotland than was the case for a number of years before that. Therefore, in the early part of 2010, salt stocks were not at a particularly strong level. At the end of the year we were sitting with, I think, about 40,000 tonnes of salt. I ask Mr Barton to confirm that.
Jim Barton (Transport Scotland)
Certainly, in the worst part, we got down as low as 30,000 tonnes and then, as we came out of winter, we got to 40,000 tonnes. By the time we got to the end of the winter, which is actually May, and we were out of all of the bad weather, we had got to around 100,000 tonnes.
We were in a pretty weak position at the turn of last year, but the Government managed that situation. We never ran out of salt and careful actions were undertaken. However, we learned the lesson that we had to have more effective salt stocks.
A great deal of the focus has gone into ensuring that that is the case. The Scottish salt group’s report, which was published in August, made 11 recommendations for short-term action. All those actions are completed or waiting for legal advice or procurement solutions to be put in place.
The report also made a number of medium-term and longer-term recommendations, which required further work. Some of them required capital investment. The Government is considering those recommendations, but they could not already have been implemented in the aftermath of a report that was received in August.
The importance of effective dialogue between all the key agencies was clear. In essence, there was a triumvirate of agencies. Transport Scotland was the Government’s representative on traffic management throughout the country. Secondly, there was representation from the providers, if I can call them that—the trunk road operating companies and the operators of rail, ferry and other public transport services—to ensure that we had a clear concept of the position on public transport. The final element of the triumvirate was the police. That ensured that Transport Scotland, the police, the trunk road operating companies and the transport providers worked together to ensure that we had an effective operation in place.
We acknowledge that, at certain times, we have to bring in the resilience operation when the conditions become more acute, which is what we did on 24 November. The reason for that is that we can then address a range of other issues, such as those with which we have been dealing in the past seven days. The necessity to secure fuel supplies around the country has become a particular issue and the resilience operation has given that significant focus. Again, the triumvirate of Transport Scotland, the police and the trunk road operating companies and transport providers has been working closely with the resilience operation to resolve the questions. At the heart of all that lies clear and effective communication.
Where do the divisions lie between governmental decisions and operational ones? That is a matter as much for Chief Constable Smith as for the cabinet secretary. Will you explain more about where the lines lie between central and operational decisions, particularly when the resilience operation is invoked?
I will say a few words first of all and then Chief Constable Smith will want to add some more remarks, I suspect.
The dividing line is, essentially, between preparation and incident management. That is perhaps the best way to differentiate it. It is clearly the responsibility of Government to lead on preparations, along with other providers. Private companies will, of course, be involved, such as First ScotRail, which provides most of the train network in Scotland, and the trunk road operating companies, which will cover what they have to do under their contracts. Other players are involved, but the preparation—the formulation of the plan—lies with Government.
On Monday and Tuesday, a succession of incidents was dealt with locally. Such incidents would predominantly be an issue for the chief constable and his colleagues.
Chief Constable Kevin Smith (Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland)
The cabinet secretary outlines the situation. When it gets into incident management, as was clearly the case throughout Monday and into Tuesday, the responsibility lies with us and other responders. Clearly, the trunk road operator and Transport Scotland would be part of that, as would local authorities, in terms of the wider road surface. Others, such as the national health service, are involved, too; in fact, anybody involved in the management of incidents and resilience would be keen to get messages out. So, I would see the divide lying clearly as the cabinet secretary outlined it. Obviously, we are part of the headline preparation work, so it is maybe not an absolute cut along the line in that regard. However, I suppose that there is clarity at some point about where we both sit and, obviously, we have regular dialogue and liaison. As the magnitude of the circumstances of Monday evening became clear, the Government had a part to play as well.
13:00
Just to add to what the chief constable said, we have strategic co-ordinating groups that operate at a local level. There are eight of those groups, mirroring Scotland’s police forces, which have lead responsibility for dealing with wider incident management at the local level. The groups are part of the general work of preparing for a period of winter weather, for example. The dialogue that will exist between the Government’s resilience operation and the strategic co-ordinating groups is crucial to ensuring preparedness in all parts of the country.
I want to ask a wee bit more about the handling of the incidents on the morning of Monday, 6 December. I have an incident management question for Mr Barton. The cabinet secretary has told us that the contracted companies gritted in the early hours of Monday 6 December in light of the weather forecast. Were they preparing to plough too, given that snow was forecast?
The trunk road operating companies are all required to prepare winter maintenance plans, which are scrutinised by us and by the independent performance audit group. All those plans are in place, and we are satisfied that the companies have adequate equipment and resources in terms of people and supplies.
The snow was forecast for Monday morning, at about the time of the rush hour. How were the companies planning to use snowploughs in the rush hour?
Over the whole of Sunday, they were gritting, then into the early hours of Monday morning they carried out a pre-grit treatment, laying material before the snow fell. Their equipment has snowploughs on it, but when the snow is not falling the snowploughs are obviously not down. When it snows, they put the snowploughs down and start to plough. They need a certain amount of snow before they can plough effectively.
How much snow?
About two inches, or 50cm.
I quote from the winter maintenance plan for the south-west division for the contractor Amey:
“Snow and Ice Clearance ... Ploughing of snow will normally commence at a snow depth of 30mm—”
which is 3cm—
“and will be accompanied by salt applications.”
My point is this: it is very difficult to plough or, indeed, grit a motorway during the morning rush hour. Was consideration given to asking the police to hold the traffic off the motorway to allow the snow to be ploughed? The snow of course cannot be ploughed until after it starts falling, and it was predicted to fall during the rush hour.
Just to clarify, it was a slip of the tongue to say 50cm, because I meant to say 5cm. Anyway, it is 5cm or 3cm. The—
I am sorry, but you said 5cm, Mr Barton—
Order.
But the winter maintenance plan says 30mm, which is 3cm.
Yes, but it converts—[Interruption.]
Order. Excuse me, but we are not in a discussion about whether it is 50 or 30mm. I think that we understand that there was a slip of the tongue there. The question was about keeping the road open.
No. Mr Barton corrected himself and said 5cm, which is also incorrect. I am quoting from the winter maintenance plan, which refers to 3cm.
Okay. A final opportunity—
That is a very important distinction, convener.
Okay, thank you. I give Mr Barton a final opportunity to answer the question; then we will go back to Alasdair Allan.
You asked me about a general point. We cannot plough when there is no snow—you made that point. The snow must be of a certain depth before it can be ploughed.
You asked whether we made provision to clear the roads of traffic before we ploughed.
Yes. Doing that would perhaps involve not letting people on to the motorway initially, for which the police would be needed.
Convener, I think—
I think that we have had—
Wait a minute—the cabinet secretary said that managing the incident was the officials’ responsibility. I agree with him. Mr Barton is presented here as a witness and I wish to ask him questions about how the incident was managed.
You have done that. We will offer Mr Barton a final opportunity to answer the question, after which we will return to Alasdair Allan.
For the snow that was forecast, we would not expect to clear the motorway for ploughing. That would not be the normal measure that we would take. As late as 8 o’clock on Monday morning, the Met Office still forecast a fairly short bout of snow. I will quote exactly what it told us at 8.01 on Monday morning:
“Generally amounts of fresh snow will be in the region of 2 to 5 cm although higher areas may see a further 10 cm. Behind this band of snow it will be generally dry and clear.”
As a roads authority, we would not expect to ask the police to close our major artery in such conditions.
I call Alasdair Allan.
So you think that it is a good idea to use snowploughs in rush-hour traffic.
Charlie. I call Alasdair Allan, please.
Thank you, convener. As—
Convener—
I have called Alasdair Allan.
Convener, we need to explore the accusation that Mr Gordon makes.
I am making no accusations; I am asking a question.
I am interested to understand the point that Mr Gordon makes about what should have been done in the circumstances.
The winter maintenance plan says:
“Ploughing of snow will normally commence at a ... depth of”
3cm. You worked on a forecast of between 2 and 5cm of snow, but you took the view that you should not hold traffic off the motorway in order to operate snowploughs. It is difficult to operate snowploughs in the rush hour.
I would like to make a remark about that.
Very briefly, please.
I will be. I would like—
It is an operational matter, cabinet secretary.
Charlie, you have asked your question several times. I am afraid that if you cannot come to order, we will not be able to have the meeting.
Convener, the cabinet secretary said—
Excuse me.
—that the preparations were his shout—
Order.
—and that the management of the incident was the officials’ shout.
I have called the cabinet secretary to answer the question and I do not expect—
As long as you are clear on what he said on the record.
Charlie, I do not expect you to ask a question four or five times in a row and not listen to the answer.
An important point to clarify is that, when the snow fell during the rush hour, ploughing activity was undertaken. I make that clear on the record—ploughing activity was undertaken during the rush hour. Mr Gordon asks how on earth we can plough in such circumstances.
You told us that it took you 11 hours, because of the traffic.
I said that some gritting cycles took 11 hours, but that was because of the gridlock that developed.
On 3 January 2008 and on 4 and 5 February 2010, 2 to 5cm of snow fell on the central Scotland road network. We ploughed in those circumstances, but that did not cause the gridlock that happened on Monday 6 December. Why? Because the snow accumulations on 6 December were much greater and the snow fell at a time when several incidents had already occurred on the roads, which led to further congestion. However, let it be made absolutely clear that ploughing activity was being undertaken while the snow fell.
The key question, which I would like the chief constable to answer, is whether it would have been advisable to close motorways on the basis of a predicted snowfall of 2 to 5cm.
If Transport Scotland had asked me at 7, 8 or 9 o’clock in the morning to close the motorways, my response would have been to ask which motorways.
We are talking about the M8 from Edinburgh to Glasgow airport and beyond, the M77 from Ayrshire to Glasgow, the A80, M80 and M876, and the M9. We should never say that something is impossible, but it was near to impossible to close those roads at that time with the resources that were available. Every time a junction is closed, a diversion route has to be put in place, so all that would have happened is that the chaos would have transferred to the surface roads. The motorway could not have been blocked using police resources at that point in time. To have done that effectively would have required significant forward planning for days. It would have required not just police resources but significant resources from Transport Scotland—
Convener, can the chief constable tell us what his response would have been if a similar request had been made the night before, when the weather forecast was received?
It has been clearly indicated that that request was not made, so that is not a question for the chief constable.
You have just let the chief constable answer one hypothetical question from Mr Swinney. How about letting him answer my hypothetical question about what would have happened if exactly the same request had been made the night before, when the weather forecast was received?
You may make a final comment, chief constable, and then Charlie Gordon is finished.
The response would have been similar. The snowfall that transpired was not what was in the warnings that we got. It would have been impossible to close the motorway network. The impact on surface roads more widely and on communities would have been significant.
I see that the new Minister for Transport and Infrastructure has published a six-point plan for winter resilience. I notice that there is a focus in that, as there was in your opening remarks, cabinet secretary, on the role of HGVs in some of the problems that Scotland experienced recently. What would you like to be done differently in the future about HGVs? I noticed, for instance, that the Government’s plan refers to:
“Working with the Police to consider how we can stack HGVs if conditions deteriorate in order to keep traffic moving”.
My second point about HGVs is that there has been much discussion in the media about the potential for adopting the practices used in some European countries of requiring HGVs to have winter tyres. [Interruption.]
I am sorry; have I pinched a question from someone?
I did not see that question advertised. This is ridiculous.
Alasdair, continue please.
I am not aware that the committee has advertised or pre-set questions. Committee members ask such questions as they think are necessary and that is the question that I want to ask.
Is that opportunity open to us all, convener?
In order, when you are called to speak.
That is my question. I was using my imagination, convener.
On Dr Allan’s first point, the Government recognises that, in certain circumstances, we might need to hold HGVs back. That was done on the M74 last Monday night, when around 200 HGVs were held where we could still get traffic through. It would not have been safe to release those HGVs on to the trunk road network at different stages during the evening.
The Government has made it clear that the fitting of winter tyres needs to be explored for the future. We have said that we will undertake, with the industry, a cost benefit analysis of all those questions because fitting winter tyres to HGVs will cost money. We have to explore the benefits and the costs of doing that because HGVs were at the heart of many of the problems that we had to deal with.
The issue falls into the category of wider winter preparations; it is about how we can take steps to make a real difference in future.
Can I ask a supplementary question on HGVs?
I will take it in a moment. I appeal to all members to keep good order. The committee has done that very well throughout this parliamentary session; it would be a great shame if members were unable to keep order when we are discussing an issue that many people want to take seriously.
Jackson Carlaw has a brief supplementary question.
13:15
I have a question about HGVs. There has been a bit of loose talk, which has caused some concern, about HGVs jack-knifing on every road in Scotland, and it has been suggested that they were largely responsible for the problems that arose. It would be helpful, cabinet secretary, if you could clarify the substance of the problems that HGVs caused.
In your opening remarks, you referred to a breakdown on the A80 at 9.21. Was that a weather-related breakdown or a normal, routine breakdown of a lorry? The M77 problem at 11 o’clock was obviously weather related. Did it involve the jack-knifing of a vehicle or was it caused simply by the fact that HGVs were finding it difficult to ascend a steep slope? Did the two breakdowns of HGVs on the M8 at 1.30 involve jack-knifing? What was the nature of those breakdowns? I know that the road haulage industry is concerned that a false impression of irresponsibility on the part of the drivers involved is being given.
The total number of recorded incidents involving HGVs between 28 November and 12 December is 140, 74 of which involved jack-knifed lorries. Twenty-seven of the incidents resulted in carriage and road closures. I am willing to give Mr Carlaw further detail on the specific examples that I cited. However, I cited those examples not to apportion blame to anyone but to explain why the motorway network became gridlocked. I am here not to apportion blame to anyone about anything but to answer on behalf of the Government. If a road becomes impassable because vehicles are blocking the carriageway, whether it be because of mechanical breakdown or because a vehicle has been in a collision or has jack-knifed, the road is blocked and there is a back-up of traffic.
Whatever the weather.
Yes, but the challenge that we faced was that the incidents that I have recounted affected the M80, the M90, the M77, the M8 and the A725. Given Mr Carlaw’s knowledge of our transport networks, he will appreciate that if those routes are affected within a short period, at a time when we have not managed to move the morning rush-hour traffic off the road and the evening rush hour has descended on us hours earlier than would have been anticipated, it is a recipe for a very difficult situation on the roads. That is the only point that I am trying to make.
I did not mean to make a confrontational point. I was simply trying to establish that the delays would have occurred if the vehicles concerned had broken down, whatever the weather.
I understand that.
I do not want to stretch the convener’s patience, but I would like to add one brief remark. Mr Carlaw made the point that the delays would have happened regardless of the weather. That is not strictly the case, because the vehicles could have been moved much more quickly. The challenge with some of the incidents was that it was taking not the usual 40 minutes but hours to remove a vehicle from the road, because vehicles could not get traction and temperatures were plummeting. As I said, in some places, the temperature was -12°C, at which grit does not work. Trying to recover vehicles in those circumstances is an acute challenge, but I assure the committee that plenty of people and personnel in the police and trunk road operating companies were trying to do exactly that for prolonged periods.
I remind members that we are tight for time and that all questions and answers should be as succinct as possible.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Today, the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure has said that he is
“Working with the Police to consider how we can stack HGVs if conditions deteriorate in order to keep traffic moving”.
I invite you to comment on that statement. Are there sufficient places in which HGVs can be stacked? I have a supplementary, once you have answered that question.
The salt group report makes the long-term recommendation that we should consider
“Requiring lorries to park in lay-bys when snow arrives to reduce the risk of either losing traction or ‘jack-knifing’”.
There are ad hoc approaches that we can take. We took one last Monday night on the M74. Basically, it involved closing two lanes of the M74 and stacking 200 HGVs to keep them off the network and to give us time to get things cleared and moving. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, when I was involved in discussions with the relevant police forces, lorries were being let out to move into the network as it was beginning to open up. So there are ad hoc solutions that can be applied.
We do not need to construct specific lorry parks to do that. If we did so, we would have to be awfully sure where the incident was going to happen, so that the lorry park was in the right place. The ad hoc solution of using lanes on multiple-lane carriageways is a pragmatic approach. However, that involves a great deal of police operational management. Of course, in the events that we are discussing, the police were dealing with numerous other incidents into the bargain. A pragmatic approach was taken on the M74 that undoubtedly relieved pressure on other areas of the network.
It is important to know whether HGVs were impeded by drivers of other vehicles driving in a fashion that led to jams. I do not suppose that you know the answer to that now, but it would be useful to get information on that in writing.
I would be staggered if HGV problems were not exacerbated by other vehicle movements and by people driving too fast or carelessly. I do not need to put that in writing; I am happy to put it on the record that, undoubtedly, HGVs would have been affected in that way.
Briefly on HGVs, I am sure that you are aware that there are several hauliers in the Grangemouth area in my constituency. Their main concern is about the lack of early information. I have been told that people lost thousands of pounds because lorries could not move. You mentioned the importance of providing early information where possible. I hope that you will take that on board, because it is vital for any future incidents.
I accept that. In response to the point that the convener raised at the beginning of the meeting, I will just say that, regrettably, when we have winter weather disturbance, we will never be able to protect individual businesses from disruption and interruption. I know that businesses will have lost revenue and business opportunities as a consequence of the winter weather, and that is to be regretted, but I am afraid that, in such circumstances, there will be disruption. The critical thing is that we can perhaps give people information earlier, saying, “Look, don’t bother taking your lorry out today—it’s no worth a candle. Keep it in the yard and don’t waste fuel or precious workers’ hours. Go out the following day.”
I will make one further point that is relevant to Mrs Peattie’s constituency. An important part of the dialogue in the resilience operation, which flows from the work that we do with Chief Constable Smith’s force, is about ensuring that the Grangemouth refinery and the fuel distribution depot are accessible to lorries. That point is not lost on me, given my previous involvement in other incidents involving the Grangemouth refinery. I know just how critical it is to ensure that access into and out of that depot for staff and delivery drivers is maintained. There was excellent co-operation between the trunk road operating companies, Falkirk Council, Central Scotland Police and the management of the Grangemouth refinery to ensure that that was the case.
I am aware of that situation and welcome it.
We have heard that some drivers continued to be allowed to join the trunk road network when it was clear what might happen as a result. If there had been an opportunity to prevent that, it might have been helpful to take it. Chief Constable Smith has explored some of those issues, but people have raised the question.
I have two points to make in response to that. First, the trunk road network is obviously the focal point for many people’s journeys across the country. Throughout the incidents that we were wrestling with on the M8, M77 and M80, almost all the subsidiary routes remained operational—such as the A80, the A803, which runs through Bishopbriggs, Kirkintilloch and Kilsyth, the A904, which runs through Grangemouth and adjacent to the M9, and the A71 and A89, which run adjacent to the M8. Through co-operation, the local authorities and the police maintained those routes as credible alternative routes. Our difficulty was that the trunk road network was afflicted with a succession of different incidents. In the feedback I have had from the police forces, I have seen that even when an incident was resolved and traffic got moving, the police had to return half an hour later because another incident happened. The trunk road network was afflicted by an intense series of difficulties, and the problem got worse because the stationary traffic meant that none of the gritting treatment that had been undertaken was effective.
The chief constable will have a better sense of my second point than I do. Bearing in mind the fact that we were dealing with all those combined incidents and problems on the M8, M9, M876, M80 and M77, the signing and direction activity that would have had to be undertaken to help drivers to avoid that network would have been a massive operational challenge for the police. Perhaps the chief constable could reflect on that.
As the cabinet secretary said, we had an incredibly difficult task. The important thing is not closing the motorways and all the resource that that would take; although we have acknowledged the importance of improving communications, the important point is that there should be no doubt that throughout the early morning and into the afternoon, consistent and regular messages were going out from Strathclyde Police and Lothian and Borders Police that the driving conditions were extremely difficult, that gritters had been deployed and that there were long tailbacks.
That information was twittered—I am not entirely au fait with that new technology myself—and put on Facebook. Within an hour, the message was that there was heavy snow, that the roads were open but the traffic was moving slowly, and that lorries were stuck on the A876. That information was twittered to all agencies. By lunch time, the roads were at a standstill, the Castlecary area was badly affected, and we were urging motorists to stay at home and not make journeys.
We can look back with hindsight, and there is always a desire to improve communications, but we should not come away thinking that there was not a regular flow of information from my force and all forces. On Monday, no one could have been in a car, on the street, or even in their house and not been aware of what was going on. Unfortunately, and I am sure for good reasons, people were making the conscious decision that they needed to join the motorway. Closing the motorway and making it impossible for people to get on to it is hugely difficult. If we had done that, we would have had no resources to send to resolve the problems.
I hope that that helps.
I will move on, although perhaps the answer to this will also involve Twitter.
When was it clear that a number of people were stranded in their vehicles? How soon was it possible to support those people?
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At various stages during the day, people were stranded in their vehicles for prolonged periods. The police and the trunk road operating companies put a lot of effort into assessing what was going on and resolving the problems. The focus of the work was to ensure that we got the traffic moving, and it did move, but it slowed up again as a result of incidents.
There is no doubt that people were stationary or stranded for prolonged periods. However, a traffic management exercise was undertaken, for example to get people off the A80 and on to the subsidiary road network through towns such as Bishopbriggs, Kirkintilloch, Cumbernauld and Kilsyth and to get them moving. People were therefore able to get away from the scene of congestion.
As the evening wore on, it became clear that people would be stuck for prolonged periods. I have had discussions with the three relevant police forces, and I know that they were out delivering blankets and hot drinks to people in their vehicles around the routes. They were also identifying people with medical conditions who had to be got out quicker than others. Clearly, the operation included a welfare element during the course of the evening. It was certainly reported to me that, throughout the night, such an operation was undertaken to ensure that members of the public were supported. However, I completely accept that many members of the public were caused some considerable inconvenience and distress.
Were the police alone in carrying out the role or were others involved?
It was primarily the police, but I think that they were working with the local authorities, whose resilience operations also kicked in. I know from my discussions that local authorities were putting in place the support mechanisms that might have been required had full rest centres been activated. During the night, we dealt with a changing situation. The carriageways were moving, albeit very slowly, and by that stage people were desperate to get to their destinations, albeit very late, so they preferred the idea of sticking it out on a motorway to going off to a rest centre that might have been established.
In the incident of the previous week, when the A9 was closed and it became clear that it was going to be closed overnight, Perth and Kinross Council was responsible for putting together—in collaboration with our local partners—a rest centre at the North Inch campus in Perth. I think that the centre accommodated more than 600 people and provided welcome respite. During the evening, a judgment was formulated on whether it was necessary to put people into a rest centre or whether they would be able to persevere in the conditions until the traffic was moving.
There are a lot of questions to ask, convener, but I am aware of the time. I want to ask briefly about Transport Scotland. The cabinet secretary spoke about the salt group report, which it seems that Transport Scotland produced with a few members from local authorities but no one from the police, who might have made some difference. The report makes a number of recommendations, but they do not seem to have been taken forward. Has Transport Scotland let down the Government and the Scottish people? Clearly, it had major responsibility. The First Minister himself said that the issue was about Transport Scotland and the police. The police have done a good job, and I am proud of the work that they have done, but I am not as happy about Transport Scotland. Does the cabinet secretary share my concern?
The report was not produced by Transport Scotland alone; it was produced by the Scottish salt group, which is a combination of Transport Scotland, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, and SCOTS. I will not be able to tell you what the acronym means, but SCOTS comprises the directors of roads in all Scotland’s local authorities.
The report makes 11 short-term recommendations, all of which either are complete or are awaiting minor details to make them complete. I therefore do not accept that the report has not been acted on. The report was delivered in August, and the short-term recommendations have all been implemented or have only minor details left to be handled. The medium-term recommendations are partly complete and the application of the longer-term recommendations is under consideration.
Cathy Peattie asked me about the performance of Transport Scotland. The point that I made to Dr Allan was about the lessons of last winter, when we had an acute problem in relation to salt supplies. We have addressed that. In the past few weeks, we have used a tremendous amount of salt stock, and we are working to replenish it. That illustrates the steps that are being taken to respond to difficult circumstances. I have no doubt that all public servants, including those in Transport Scotland, are determined to ensure that we strengthen the areas that need to be strengthened, which includes the area of communication, in relation to which, as the Government and I have conceded, work needs to be undertaken.
Surely Transport Scotland had a key role in that communication. Five of the nine people on the salt group were from Transport Scotland. It strikes me that that communication role is for Transport Scotland.
I do not imagine that there were any votes in the Scottish salt group about what was going on, which I suspect was a result of the fact that we brought together people with some expertise in addressing the issues in question. Frankly, if Transport Scotland had not worked with SCOTS so assiduously last winter and we had an inadequate salt supply, there is no way in which we would have been able to manage the difficult situation.
I hear what is being said, but a tremendous amount of work goes on to try to ensure that the traffic network can function effectively, and Transport Scotland has undertaken that work in drawing together the activities of the trunk road operating companies, the local authorities and the police, and it will continue to do so.
It is important that this committee keeps an eye on things to ensure that the lessons have been learned and that Transport Scotland applies those lessons in future years.
We have heard news about the local roads, side roads and pavements outwith the motorway networks. For those of us in the country and towns, there is a question of access for pedestrians and for motorists. Is the cabinet secretary satisfied that sufficient resources were made available by local authorities to clear local and side roads and to make pavements safe for pedestrians?
Inevitably, the answer to that question will vary from one part of the country to another. Local authorities are responsible for their winter maintenance arrangements. In that context, they have to formulate plans that are appropriate for their own circumstances. In the communities that I represent in Perth and Kinross and Angus, I have seen the local authorities implementing road and pavement clearing operations using small tractors with plough attachments at the front and gritting attachments at the back. I have also seen that elsewhere in the country in the past couple of weeks.
I acknowledge that not all surfaces are passable for members of the public. In relation to last weekend and the weekend before the major incident on 6 December, SCOTS reported to the Government that the principal local roads were in a good position by 4 December, and local authorities felt that they had an opportunity to make a substantial impact on minor roads, suburban roads and pathways. That was to be the focus of their activity, ideally, in the week beginning 6 December. Of course, that was somewhat stymied by the significant additional snowfall on 6 December. Problems will undoubtedly still exist and recur in individual local authority areas.
It is obvious that some areas were hit much harder than they have been hit for a long while by the extremely heavy snow. Would one recommendation be to look at more resilience for councils in terms of their ability to sweep paths and so forth? The problem was obvious in Edinburgh, the streets of which members have to walk to get to the Parliament. We did so over the past weeks with trepidation. Do we need to look at the levels of equipment, salt and grit that are available for pathways, so that people can at least walk to the shops, surgeries, work and schools?
Mr Gibson raises a fair point. Some local authorities are more accustomed than others are to such conditions and therefore have more extensive winter maintenance operations. The area that Mr Gibson represents is pretty accustomed to such conditions, as is the area that I represent. However, other parts of the country that are less accustomed to them will have made different judgments on what was the right level of equipment to put in place. We all have to look at the experience of periods of winter weather and judge what is sustainable in the medium term. The Government will, of course, do that in relation to the areas that are our responsibility. I am sure that local authorities will do that in relation to theirs.
We turn to questions on rail. I ask members to keep questions short, if at all possible.
The rail network seemed to struggle a bit in last week’s severe weather. The flagship Glasgow to Edinburgh via Falkirk High service was reduced to a timetable that notionally represented 25 per cent of capacity. Other delays occurred. Yours truly was stranded in Edinburgh for two nights with just the clothes that I stood up in—a cruel and unusual fate for a dyed-in-the-wool Glaswegian, I am sure you will agree. Other lines, such as that between Glasgow and Edinburgh via Shotts, were closed completely. Indeed, north of the central belt not much was moving on the rails.
Are you satisfied with the performance of the railway industry last week, given First ScotRail’s £315 million subsidy this year and Network Rail’s £330 million this year for the development of the railway, with more proposed for next year? Did Network Rail switch on the points heaters? Did it use best endeavours to keep routes open? Are you happy with the resilience of the rail network last week?
Clearly, the rail network was subject to a significant amount of disruption. The problems on the trunk road network resulted in greater numbers of train passengers, which intensified the pressure on the rail network into the bargain. Two major elements influenced the performance of the rail network. First, the rolling stock—I will call it the diesel stock—suffered significant damage. As units travelled along the rails to complete their journeys, significant volumes of ice and snow compacted underneath them. Given the sophistication of the braking systems and the depth of temperatures that were involved, brakes were frequently coming on literally every two minutes. As a consequence, the units became inoperable and had to be taken to depots to be de-iced. I did not witness it with my own eyes, but I imagine that removing the amounts of ice that we are talking about from underneath the rail units was no mean feat.
I do not have the numbers to hand—the numbers that I will cite are therefore not precise, convener—but I recollect from the resilience conference calls over the course of the acute period, which involved First ScotRail and Network Rail, that 60 to 70 of the 110 or so available diesel units were undermined by the circumstances. First ScotRail was unable to deploy as many units as it would have liked to.
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The concept of ploughing the tracks was suggested, but that was impossible because of the sophistication of the rail monitoring equipment that sits within the tracks and the fact that it would have been dangerous for the long-term health of the rail network.
First ScotRail has now taken steps to try to defrost trains more quickly by acquiring covers that go round the perimeter of the trains when they are in the yard, so that the process of heating them to remove the ice and snow is quicker and units get back out of the door more frequently.
That was the principal operational issue that affected First ScotRail. The second issue that affected the rail network involved the points. Network Rail deployed a key route strategy to keep the principal routes open, to enable us to maximise the amount of travel around the country. Charlie Gordon asked specifically about the Shotts line. The reason why it was closed is that the Mid Calder junction is very isolated and exposed, and any efforts to keep it open could have had implications for the ability to keep open the west coast main line, which was judged to be a more significant route.
I acknowledge the disruption to members of the public, but those were the two principal issues that affected the rail network. The major challenge was that we were having to wrestle with significantly lower temperatures. We have to consider that with regard to our current rolling stock and its ability to endure winter weather of that magnitude.
Long railways in the Highlands were closed without much explanation. Can we get an indication from someone—now or later—of the cost of keeping warm a set of points and whether it might be possible to do that? I recognise the problems with ploughing, but it is clear that the issue that affected most people on the railways was a problem with information.
Passenger Focus said that the railway companies had to recognise passengers’ plight: those companies got the passengers into the situation, so they should get them out. What will the companies do to prevent similar delays from happening in future? Having a complete breakdown of that issue would be a great help to us.
ScotRail endeavoured to keep rail information as accessible as possible to members of the public, but two things affected its performance. First, units failed frequently: at the peak, 62 of the 110 units in the ScotRail diesel fleet were out of action as a consequence of the circumstances that I have described.
First ScotRail was, on a daily basis, having to design an emergency timetable and advertise it on its website. It was running a diminished timetable, and as the day wore on trains unfortunately were failing. An individual could have left their house in Linlithgow, for example, expecting to get a 9 o’clock train after checking the website and seeing that the train was running, only to find when they got to the station that the train had stopped functioning in the time that it had taken them to get from their house to the station. I appreciate that that causes enormous inconvenience and frustration to members of the public.
The daily average number of hits on the ScotRail website is 25,000. On 6 December, the website took 200,000 hits. From 1 to 9 December, the website had 1.3 million hits. That tells us what we need to know about the scale of desire for information. Obviously, people become greatly frustrated when they are on websites that are unable to keep up with the disruption on the network. I have tried to explain how some of that real-time difficulty might arise.
As a matter of interest, on 4 December the traffic Scotland website had 1.2 million hits, whereas on 6 December it had 21.6 million hits, which is four hits for every man, woman and child in Scotland. That website remained intact for the duration of 6 December. I cannot profess that the information that it conveyed was particularly welcome to members of the public, but nonetheless it was able to withstand an enormous battering from members of the public who were pursuing information that I clearly acknowledge they wanted to pursue.
I have no doubt that committee members could pursue that further. There are certainly issues that we have not had time to explore, but we need to move on. I am sure that the committee will want to continue to engage with the Government on the issues, either in writing or in meetings in the new year. To those of your colleagues who are preparing for whatever weather is to come, we wish them all success.
Because I have a public platform and we expect severe weather to return this week, I take the opportunity to say that the advice that I have—although a resilience call has taken place while I have been at the committee, so my information is several hours old—is that we expect a bout of very severe winter weather on Wednesday evening and into Thursday, and more than likely spilling over into Friday, with significant volumes of snow. Our preparations are designed to address that. I give the committee an assurance that information about the circumstances that we face will be made available as far in advance as possible, and it will be updated and reinforced as circumstances develop.
Finally, when will the report that you said that the new transport minister has released today on the measures that are being taken be available to members?
It is in the form of a press announcement that went out this morning. It will certainly be available publicly.
The point is that members were not able to see it in advance of the meeting. In future, it would be helpful if such information was provided to members.
I now suspend the meeting briefly to allow the changeover of witnesses.
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Meeting suspended.
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On resuming—