Our final Highways Voices featuring content gathered during the ITS World Congress in Dubai is a panel discussion looking at technical collaboration in transport between the UK and Europe.

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Recorded in front of an audience on the UK Pavilion at the heart of the event's exhibition floor, we hear from Joost Vantomme, CEO of ERTICO - ITS Europe and his colleague John Paddington - Head of ERTICO's Project Management Office, along with Department for Transport ITS Policy Lead Darren Capes, who is Transport Technology Forum Manager, and the Local Council Roads Innovation Group CEO Paula Claytonsmith.

We talk cross-border coordination, AI, regulatory frameworks and local government engagement plus the practical challenges of implementing new technologies, and, of course, the 2027 ITS World Congress in Birmingham.

The UK Pavilion was organised by the Transport Technology Forum and LCRIG, showcasing UK ITS and the work of stand participants AECOM, AGD Systems, ANGOKA, Aurrigo, Clearview Intelligence, Immense, Neology, Nicander, Now Wireless, Starling Technologies, Westcotec and Zenzic, with ITS UK also very active on the stand.

In the third of our special podcasts from the 30th ITS World Congress in Dubai, we find out how British companies can get help to build new business in the UAE, and we hear more about the World Congress in three years' time in Birmingham.

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We hear from the UK Ambassador in Dubai, Edward Hobart CMG who was joined in an address by the Vice Chairman of the Supreme Organising Committee of the World Congress, Director of Dubai's Transportation Systems, HE Khaled Al Awadhi who addressed the UK delegation with Mr Hobart and the Department for Transport’s Chief Scientific Adviser Professor Sarah Sharples.

Mr Hobart then expands on his team's role in helping build business in the UAE and why UK companies are welcome in the Emirates.

After that we look ahead to three years' time and the ITS World Congress in Birmingham, with the official international launch with Transport for West Midlands' Chris Lane, Anthony Ferguson from the Department for Transport, Joost Vantomme and Dr Angelos Amditis of ERTICO and then ITS UK Chief Executive Max Sugarman.

The UK Pavilion is organised by the Transport Technology Forum and LCRIG, showcasing UK ITS and the work of stand participants AECOM, AGD Systems, ANGOKA, Aurrigo, Clearview Intelligence, Immense, Neology, Nicander, Now Wireless, Starling Technologies, Westcotec and Zenzic, with ITS UK also very active on the stand.

This week, the Road Surface Treatments Association (RSTA) has launched Pothole Prevention Week as part of its on-going commitment to highlight the benefits of surface treatments that prevent potholes from forming in the first place.

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Joining us on Highways Voices for this conversation (see below), is Mike Hansford, the new Chief Executive of the RSTA and Craig Marshall, Head of Commercial at ASI Solutions, a RSTA member and provider of the RHINOPHALT asphalt preservation product.

Preventative or surface treatments protect and preserve roads so that they last longer and are protected from defects and potholes.

Once these treatments are applied, roads can last for up to 10-20 years longer or more, depending on the treatment. That’s roads without potholes for that long or even longer if re-application is possible.

In taking a more proactive approach, the life-expectancy of a road in the UK could be increased, and potholes significantly reduced, if local authorities and their private sector contractors adopt a more proactive approach to highway maintenance alongside other treatments such as resurfacing.

This would mean central government would eventually be spending far less on reactive repairs such as filling in potholes by adopting a ‘prevention is better than cure’ approach to highway maintenance funding, rather than ‘papering over the cracks’ with pothole repairs, for them only to appear again later in the medium term.