Colas News
Feb 17
Queens University student wins Colas Award
This year’s Colas Award final was held in Penrith, Cumbria on the 12th February. Four students produced papers and gave presentations on a range of topics concerned with ‘highways’, each vying for the prestigious top spot.
First up was Steven Alexander, who spoke about ‘safety audits in relation to shared space schemes’. He asked the question; “Are shared space schemes as safe as traditional road layouts?” and he went on to consider different viewpoints on this topic.
Next to speak was Simon Heslop, who was interested to find out how driver boredom relates to driver safety, and asked whether the solution to safer roads is to re-engineer/plan road layouts, or re-educate drivers. He also posed the question “Who is most likely to get bored when driving?” whilst considering the wider psychological aspects of driver age and gender and how these aspects may relate to driving styles - including factors such as risk taking.
The third presentation of the evening was given by John Lambert. His topic was concerned with how each individual layer of a surface dressing performs, and he took into account factors such as strength, durability and cost effectiveness.
Finally, Laura Carse presented a topic about the stability of hillside slopes and how it can be determined whether or not there is any hint of slope failure following increased rainfall. Also, what causes progressive failure of slopes and including how preventative measures can be implemented.
After the presentations had been given, the judges went to consider who they thought had produced the most comprehensive paper.
Following their deliberations, Laura, of Queen’s University Belfast was announced as the winner and CIHT president, Chris Jackson praised all the finalists for their impressive contributions. As her prize, Laura will now be visiting Colas’ laboratory in Paris.