Road policies that could deliver for Wales

Professor Stuart Cole, CBE. Emeritus Professor of Transport Economics and Policy, Prifysgol de Cymru / University of South Wales

Last month, this column considered the overall funding options including inter-modal passenger transport integration and railway investment funding.

Most mileage travelled in Wales is undertaken by road and as road users we also spend money using those roads. Road transport involves considerable public expenditure and political parties in their election manifestos will set out the road transport policies each claims will benefit the economy, society and culture of Wales.

Set out here are the criteria by which voters may judge the politicians promises on five road functions. These are road construction, road maintenance, traffic management, local buses / TrawsCymru and nation-building. Will those policies benefit Wales and are their manifesto promises credible?

Road construction

No matter how much this columnist may try to persuade travellers to make greater use of buses trains or active travel, achieving that will be a long-term process. In the meantime while road construction cannot grow exponentially, government has to provide increased capacity to match the growth in travel needs if only to help economic growth.

There is a new cohort of voters (aged 16 – 18) turning its attention to the possibility of car travel.

They are the most likely group to consider the environment and climate change as more important than road provision and travel by public transport but that provision has to be in place if they are to be convinced.

Having road and rail construction under one Senedd-led budget enables schemes such as additional road capacity around Newport to be considered alongside the six proposed new passenger railway stations between there and Cardiff. With more frequent trains these are expected to reduce congestion on the M4 at the Brynglas Tunnels.

Within such a road-rail investment package we can judge the success of the Valley Lines / Cardiff Metro £1.2 bn infrastructure investment (of which the UK Government only provided a tenth) in reducing the A470 /M4 peak congestion problem.

Last week the UK Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer promised a surprise £14 bn rail investment programme for Wales. Forgive a degree of cynicism, but in over fifty years in transport I have seen such proposals arrive and depart with no timetable set out.

Any post-May government has to take a more robust line with Whitehall otherwise any such announcements are implausible.

Road maintenance

An alternative to new road construction is to maintain, to a high standard, that network which we have now. Potholes are now too frequent and have emerged as a bigger source of compliant than the 20-mph speed limit at its height.

They cause financial damage to motor vehicles, increased insurance premiums and through creating distribution inefficiencies cause late deliveries, shortages and reduced retail  and Welsh farmers sales. Almost none of that financial cost can be reclaimed from highway authorities.

By far the greatest danger is to cyclists who are more likely to suffer physical injury when forced off their bikes by poor road surfaces.

The RAC, and the Asphalt Industry Alliance 2025 report estimated that £90m has been spent per annum on pothole removal in Wales over the last decade .

This has not however dealt with the backlog estimated at £950m in Wales. One way the successful political party can be judged is by setting out a five-year (the Senedd period) capital programme approaching £250m annually to cover the backlog and new potholes.

Traffic management (structures, regulation and financial charges)

The traffic management scheme attracting the most attention is the 20-mph speed limit. Introduced on selected roads in 2023 and which Welsh Government statistics show has reduced personal injuries and fatalities on Wales’ roads by twenty-six per cent.

However it has annoyed many drivers in that for example speed limits can change four times on one mile of roadway which hardly assists driver concentration. The economic evaluation process contained in HM Treasury’s green book (current 2024 edition) does not appear to have been followed. It enables schemes (and expenditure) to be compared on a strategic basis and then on economic, financial and risk basis.

The scheme may have been within the Designated Authority Limit of Welsh Government. In an economist’s view the intending government’s manifesto should have a detailed review process for the current 20-mph regulations to be credible.

Traffic management schemes include those prohibiting use of roadways at certain times e.g. outside schools or in pedestrian areas  A significant impact on bus journey times can be achieved through bus priority schemes making those services more attractive especially to existing car users. Any party intending to promote bus usage should be setting out how these can be introduced.

Local buses / TrawsCymru – the national bus network

The Welsh Government (currently controlled by Welsh Labour with Plaid Cymru support for the 2026 / 27 budget) has proposed a major change in bus service funding. The enabling Bus Services (Wales) Act was passed by the Senedd and received Royal Assent earlier this month.

The May election will determine which party (or coalition) is in power and whether it will replace the present free-market structure with one of franchising bus operations. Additional legislation is required to begin franchising contracts. Franchising bus services should not be in doubt as the One Network, One timetable, One ticket white paper (correctly in this column’s view) sets out. The government proposes that Transport for Wales (TfW) should determine the detail.

This column has consistently argued for county-based regional transport authorities determining local bus networks with TfW overseeing the integration of those services and managing the national rail network and TrawsCymru (both of which it effectively ‘owns’).

Nation building

Transport links between north and south Wales are not good.

From south-west to north-east we have the A483 between Swansea and Wrexham and the Heart of Wales Line between Llanelli / Swansea and Shrewsbury. Linking south-east and north-west Wales (Cardiff and Bangor) are the A470 and a 4h 30m journey by rail through the English borders; an hour more than Bangor – London by train. And along the western  edge TrawsCymru operates an hourly frequency Carmarthen –   Aberystwyth – Bangor service taking five hours currently.

Any party which believes in Wales’ economic future will have proposals to reverse the under-investment of the past decades. As a starting point it will show how it intends to obtain a fairer allocation of the block-grant and how it can increase road capacity in the Canolbarth without adversely affecting the beauty of mid-Wales.

How will these elements fit into the manifestos? This column will, in the week before the election, apply these criteria to identify the political parties which in its view will best benefit the users of  Wales’ transport network.