A6 RUSHDEN – HIGHAM FERRERS BYPASS ... - Highways Agency

Based on a single year’s accident data, the opening of the bypass showedlittle impact on the overall accident rate along the route. The new road did,however, have a good accident rate, below the national average; andBoth the noise and air-quality ‘sub-criteria’ assessments contained in thescheme AST were shown to have been partially achieved through thereduction in through traffic observed in the towns of Rushden and HighamFerrers.The POPE Report1.14 The Highways Agency has a requirement to carry out post-opening evaluations ofits Major Schemes, to identify how far the predicted objectives and benefits havebeen achieved. This report represents the Five-Year After report for the A6Rushden – Higham Ferrers bypass, and is prepared under the Post-OpeningProject Evaluation (POPE) Commission. This follows an earlier Traffic ImpactStudy (Nov 2003) and One-Year After report (June 2005). Figure 1.3 presents thesequence of post opening reporting.Figure 1.3 – Sequence of Post Opening Reporting1.15 This FYA study is intended to evaluate whether the original objectives of thescheme have been achieved, and provides a comparison of the predicted schemeimpacts against those actually emerging five years after opening, when it isconsidered that the impacts of the scheme have settled down. The overall impactsof the scheme are assessed, where possible, against the core NATA (NewApproach to Appraisal) objectives of Economy, Safety, Environment, Integrationand Accessibility and are presented in the form of an Evaluation Summary Table(EST).1.16 In addition to measuring the out-turn impacts of the A6 Rushden - Higham Ferrersimprovements, additional objectives of this report are to:Identify differences between predicted and out-turn impacts and economicforecasts;Where evidence is available provide explanations of these differences; andIdentify wider lessons and action based recommendations that can inform theenhancement and reliability of HA appraisal methods.14