Automated roadworks reporting
Durham County Council · with Causeway one.network · since replicated by 20+ highway authorities
An API-driven text report of high-impact roadworks on the council website, replacing a manual weekly compilation.
The problem
Durham had always published a text-based report of major works. The coordination team compiled it by hand — adding high-impact works to a spreadsheet each week, with checks by several teams before it reached the webpage. Accurate, but slow, and consuming staff time every week for something that could be derived from data the council already held.
Map-based works data was already embedded on the site through one.network. But a text list does something a map doesn’t: it’s accessible to screen readers, it’s scannable, and it works for anyone who wants to read rather than navigate. Keeping it mattered.
The constraint that shaped it
The obvious approach — pull everything from an existing API — fails on two counts.
First, the report exists to highlight disruptive works: road closures, signals. A feed of all works buries the ones people need to know about.
Second, GDPR. The Street Manager Works Description field is free text, which means it can contain anything a user typed, including personal data. You can’t publish that to a council website unchecked.
How it works
Working with one.network, we built an API that returns works in text format, drawing only on the Traffic Management module — which scopes it to the high-impact works the report is for.
For the descriptions, we compiled a controlled list of works descriptions for staff to use, added by the coordination and TTRO teams as a matter of course. That sidesteps the free text field entirely: the public gets useful context about each works, and nothing unreviewed reaches the website.
Outcome
Up-to-date text-based roadworks information, published continuously rather than weekly, with the manual compilation removed entirely. The approach has since been replicated by more than 20 highway authorities.