Carillion frontrunner for £96m road scheme

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Carillion is being tipped to win the first major Highways Agency contract designed to reduce traffic jams on the country's motorways.

The congestion-busting job, known as the Birmingham Box and worth £96 million, will see 67 gantries installed across three motorways in and around the country's second city.

Skanska and Balfour Beatty - which are both in the Connect Plus consortium that will widen part of the M25 - Costain and Nuttall were also bidding for the work that has been labelled by the HA as an active traffic management contract. The scheme is due to start in the autumn and will be completed by 2011.

But rival firms contacted by Construction News are now admitting that the Wolverhampton-based £5 billion business is in pole position for the job. Carillion declined to comment.

A spokesman for the Highways Agency said: "The work will see the introduction of a series of variable speed limit and hard shoulder running sections on the M6, M40 and M42 in the Midlands."

As well as the gantries, which will provide drivers with information on speed limits and queuing traffic, more than 20 emergency refuge areas - similar to a lay-by - will be installed.

New directional signage and safety fencing to protect structures will be put up as well as combined electrical cabinets to house roadside electronics and ramp metering works at some junctions.

The job is the first major active traffic management project for the Highways Agency since the successful pilot on the M42 between junction 3a and junction 7 two years ago.

The HA spokesman added: "We have areas of variable speed limit to avoid jams leading up to areas of active traffic management. Hard shoulder running adds more capacity in congested areas."

The Department for Transport gave the scheme the green light in October last year and said it would provide the cash from its own Innovation Fund.

Earlier this year, the Highways Agency said it was investigating other locations where active traffic management and hard shoulder running could be used to reduce jams.

These include the M27 and M3 motorways around the Southampton area, the M4 and M5 around Bristol, the M4 and M3 on the approaches to the M25 on the western side of London and sections of the M6, M60 and M62 close to Manchester.

The agency has previously said it is considering scrapping some widening jobs, including large sections of the M1 and two sections of the M25 between junctions 5 and 7, near Caterham in Surrey, and 23 and 27 in Hertfordshire, in favour of hard shoulder running.