Cost of installing LED road studs: EIR release

Information requested

The following information:

1. How much money Transport Scotland has invested in years 2021, 2022 and 2023 (to date) on these led road studs and how many were installed each year.
2. I also request the same information for conventional reflective road studs.
3. Details of any reports commissioned by Transport Scotland that justify the investment.

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Response to your request

To aid with my response I have retained the numbering from your request above.

1&2 – Transport Scotland, through the trunk road Operating Companies and Design Build Finance Operate (DBFO) Concessionaires, is responsible for the management and maintenance of Scotland’s strategic trunk road. Each Operating Company and DBFO have a different rate for the installation road studs. Releasing these separately would be commercially sensitive.

Please see the following tables for total number of LED and conventional roads installed by all Operating Companies and DBFOs between 1 January 2021 and 4 September 2023.

Operating Company Information

Calendar Year	Number of LED Studs Installed	£ Spend on LED Studs	Number of Conventional Reflective Studs Installed	£ Spend on Conventional Reflective Studs
2021	300	£25,497	88024	£724,743
2022	2539	£331,997.8	58885	£327,861
2023(01/01/2023 - 04/09/2023)	4865	£1,253,326.00	54268	£798,047

DBFO Information

Calendar Year	Number of LED Studs Installed	Number of Conventional Reflective Studs Installed
2021	0	8949
2022	0	12182
2023(01/01/2023 - 04/09/2023)	0	5561

Please note that road stud refurbishments are undertaken with other operations such as road marking refurbishment and pavement repairs. The above costs will vary due to traffic management requirements.

A figure of £765,500.34 for LED installation is included in the costs for 2023, however these LED studs have not been installed as of yet. These are programmed for installation this financial year (2023/24).

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Transport Scotland does not have all of the information you have requested. Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), Transport Scotland is not required to provide information which it does not have. I can advise that with the Design Build Finance and Operate (DBFO) contracts, Transport Scotland pay a monthly Unitary Charge and therefore the amount spent on the cost of LED road studs and conventional reflective studs cannot be disaggregated from the overall cost of these projects.

We are also unable to provide full costs. This is due to the current Operating Company for the North East of Scotland, Amey, only commencing the management and maintenance of this area on 16 August 2022. Amey does not hold, nor have access to, the previous Operating Companies (BEAR Scotland) financial records as this is commercially sensitive information.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption. While we recognise there may be some public interest in the amount of money spent on LED road studs and conventional reflective studs, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

3. Please Annexes A-B for a copy of all reports commissioned by Transport Scotland with regards to LED investment.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1)
of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202300374411 - Information Released - Annex A - A737 report

File type

PDF

File size

1.4 MB

FOI 202300374411 - Information Released - Annex B - A78 Report

File type

28 page PDF

File size

862.8 kB