Contents
Issued 10.11.23 – The FAQ has been updated for question 4.5.
Issued 14.8.23 – The FAQ has been updated with responses raised at the DMRB and MCHW update webinar. New questions and answers are numbered 4.4, 4.5, 5.1 (moved from DMRB website section), 5.2 and 5.3.
Issued 21.4.23 – The FAQ has been updated with responses raised at the DMRB and MCHW update webinar. New questions and answers are numbered 1.7, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3.
Issued 8.8.22 – The FAQ has been updated with responses raised at the DMRB and MCHW update webinar. New questions and answers are numbered 1.4, 1.5, 1.6. 2.1, 3.1.
Issued 29.3.22 – The FAQ has been updated with responses to queries raised. New questions and answers are numbered 1.1, 1.2, 1.3.
DMRB website
Where is the DMRB archive please? Is it publicly accessible?
[29.3.22] It can be found on our DMRB website under ‘archive’: https://www.standardsforhighways.co.uk/dmrb/archive and is publicly accessible. It currently displays any DMRB document that was published in February 2001 onwards.
Back to topIs it possible to put all historic standards on the DMRB highways standards site. For example, there are many structures which have never been assessed and when carrying out risk reviews, one needs copies of the relevant load and design standards back to to 80s, 70s and further to know what the structure has been designed for.
[29.3.22] We do not have a complete set of “clean” copies of the older standards you refer to. Many are scanned copies of copies we have acquired from a variety of sources including individuals who have “annotated” their copy with their own interpretation and comments. If you need a specific older standard not available on the standards for highways website, please email standards_enquires@nationalhighways.co.uk and with the standard and the year of publication (or year when current) and we will send you a copy with the comments redacted.
Back to topDoes ‘road development’ include road design? eg docs on geometric road layouts etc?
[29.3.22] Yes – Road development includes documents we deem as ‘Control and Communications Technology’ and ‘Road Layout’. They have the document codes CX 100-199 for Road Layout and TX 100-499 for Control and Communications Technology.
Back to topWill National Application Annexes be available in a HTML format once some of the DMRB documents start to get published in this format later this year?
[8.8.22] Yes. Any DMRB document that was published after March 2021 will be available to view in a HTML format (as a webpage) or PDF format later this year. The date is still to be confirmed. If the document was published with National Application Annexes they will also be available in this format.
Back to topCan the Departures Manual be made available via Standards for Highways?
[8.8.22] No. The Standards for Highways website will only list documents applicable to all of the four Overseeing Organisations and the Departures Manual is a National Highways only document. The Departures Manual can be downloaded here: https://das-help.highwaysengland.co.uk/
Are we able to use it to add any guidance documents we have that sit outside of the DMRB?
The Standards for Highways website is now being used for UK wide requirements and guidance. We are working within rules set by the Cabinet Office about government websites.
NH specific guidance should be on the NH website. For example research paper can be published on the NH’s external innovations website https://nationalhighways.co.uk/our-work/innovation-and-research/research/research-publications/
Back to topDocument reviews
With regard to the ‘due date’ for DMRB document reviews, does that mean the publication date – or an earlier stage in the process such as verbal agreement of any updates with the TSC?
[8.8.22] The initial due date for document reviews is set at 4 years post publication and this is the date flagged on Jira. This allows the technical authoring team a further 12 months to make any identified changes through the governance process.
Following publication, the document review period is then set to 5 years in the future and so on. Please see section 18 of Manual for Development of Documents part one for further guidance.
Back to topTraining
Are there any further training sessions available on drafting rules in the Manual for Development of Documents in future?
[8.8.22] There are no plans to run any further live training or refresher training sessions on drafting rules in the Manual for Development of Documents, but all previous training sessions have been recorded and are available to view on the Help pages:
The drop in sessions are also available for MCHW drafting queries (Tuesday mornings) and Jira/governance queries (Alternate Tuesday afternoons). Please contact rebecca.ansell@nationalhighways.co.uk to be sent an invite.
Back to topDMRB drafting queries
Problem with the change to MDD style was losing so much guidance which is causing specialists significant additional time and the fact we can’t publish such guidance separately to DMRB has a real impact on workload, but not being addressed corporately.
There is no requirement to remove useful guidance. For example, Section 5 MDD Part 3 covers advisory content. Technical authors shall decide what advice is relevant to a document. Additional content may be provided as informative appendices (see Section 4 MDD Part 2).
From Section 10 MDD Part 3, it is recognised that some documents may provide useful research outcomes or guidance materials. These can be translated into research reports / stand-alone advisory material. Technical authors shall contact TSG to discuss options to retain research outcomes.
As a reminder, the DMRB has been prepared for use by competent practitioners, typically qualified professionals able to work independently in relevant fields, who are expected to apply their own skill and judgement when making decisions involving the information that the DMRB contains.
I have found that people interpret Overseeing Organisation differently. One team will speak to Operations and get agreement and then say they have OO agreement, but others speak to SES and again others to Major projects. It would be useful to define this to remove ambiguity.
A high-level definition of the Overseeing Organisation is given in GG 101. The specific relevant discipline or directorate may vary depending on the subject and may evolve over time.
Please define what is meant by “the agreement of the Overseeing Organisation”. Is this a discussion or should this be captured as a Departure?
The sentence “the agreement of the Overseeing Organisation” should not be associated with a departure because in principle all requirements can be departed from, thus implicitly requiring the agreement of the Overseeing Organisation (via the Departure Approval System). Where an agreement is required which is not a departure (i.e. not a departure from a requirement), this will need to be formally recorded in an agreed process (case-by-case basis).
Back to topSo, flowcharts will be amended by others, not ourselves?
Amendments relate to existing published DMRB documents, source files will be provided. If you have to make any changes as a result of recent updates, these will be handled by you using the source files.
Back to topSource files for amended flow charts are provided in CAD format. I don’t have this application to amend the flow chart further, will this be made available to authors (with training on how to use it)?
[amended 10.11.23] Please follow the guidance here: §https://help.futuredmrb.co.uk/how-to-sign-up-for-an-autocad-lt-licence-national-highways-colleagues-only/
Back to topDMRB consequential amendments from MCHW update in RIS 2
How will the MCHW/DMRB big bang publication work and will there be a gap where content goes out of the MCHW and into the DMRB?
[8.8.22] Where there is content that is identified as needing to come out of the MCHW into the DMRB, we recommend creating a DMRB ‘holding’ document in CARS to store the content and get it in a drafted state. It can then be transferred over to your live DMRB document and go through the governance process so it can be published at the same time as the MCHW ‘big bang’ publication. This also means incremental changes to the DMRB that are not as a result of the update to the MCHW can be published in the meantime.
Once the new style MCHW is published, the current MCHW will not disappear. It will be available on the standards for highways website (in a similar way to the DMRB) in the archive before the new MCHW is published. The contracted version will be a dated version of the Specification as defined by the contract.
Please contact TSG for any further guidance.
Back to topIs it possible to accelerate publication of new DMRB docs e.g. CD 131?
If the new DMRB document is independent of the MCHW refresh, yes. If not, it needs to wait the launch of the MCHW as we need a consistent set of DMRB and MCHW documents for contractual reasons.
Back to topAre the changes to the DMRB documents big amendments?
The extent of changes to the DMRB varies by document. Example changes might include the addition of design information transferred from the existing MCHW, or the addition of a few clauses to link with the specifier instructions.
Back to top