Credit: Crown Copyright/Open Government Licence v3.0

National Highways has signed a long-term £12.8m contract to replace the 20-year-old platform through which it manages more than 4,000 miles of pavements around the country.

The agency, which was recently rebranded from Highways England, has awarded a five-year deal to specialist consultancy and software publisher TRL. The contract came into effect on 18 October and covers the delivery of a major project to replace HAPMS, the system through which the government agency manages all data related to England’s 4,300-mile network of pavements.

The platform is about 20 years old. It is based on “an outdated version” of Confirm, an asset-management software tool developed by US tech firm Pitney Bowes. HAPMS remains housed in a Windows Server 2003 environment – six and a half years after Microsoft ended support for the technology. 

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The contract notice said: “The HAPMS Replacement PMS (Pavement Management System) project, aims to provide a replacement for the legacy HAPMS platform based on commercial off the shelf software, so that [National Highways] teams can continue providing critical supporting services for the strategic road network.”

TRL – which was formerly a government agency before being privatised in 1996 – is among the suppliers that provides support to the outgoing system, working alongside Pitney Bowes, Atos, and Leidos.

HAPMS “holds the strategic road network definition for the pavement asset, strategic road network and scheme level condition, inventory and associated data”, according to National Highways.

“Working with… construction and maintenance delivery partners, [National Highways] carries out a number of strategic road network wide condition surveys each year,” the contract notice added. “Once assured and stored, the information is used to measure… performance against a number of key performance indicators – as defined by the Office of Rail and Road – and supports the development of pavement renewal and maintenance programmes. In doing so, [National Highways] ensures the asset remains safe and serviceable for customer use.”