High wind strategy and national wind management guidelines

The incidences of high wind on exposed sections of any road network can result in
severe disruption and danger to road users. There are a number of locations throughout Scotland where the effect of high wind has had adverse consequences on congestion, the safety of the travelling public, journey time reliability and on the economies of the affected area and the country as a whole.

Transport Scotland commissioned the Met Office to prepare a set of model results which identify the comparative mean wind speeds and gusts speeds for the whole of the motorway and trunk road network and also the A-class local authority roads. This analysis is based upon various wind speed and gust analyses using historical wind data from 1971 to 2000.

The key focus of these guidelines is 10 basic steps to high wind management embracing pre-planning, incident management and information dissemination prior to, during and after a wind incident has occurred. The scope, complexity and effort required to manage each task will vary dependent on site specifics and the level of perceived risk and disruption at each location.