Infrastructures 2022, 7, 146. https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures7110146 www.mdpi.com/journal/infrastructures Article Evaluation of Climate Change Resilience of Urban Road Network Strategies Siama Begum, Rachel S. Fisher *, Emma J. S. Ferranti and Andrew D. Quinn Department of Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK * Correspondence: r.s.fisher@bham.ac.uk Abstract: The impacts of the changing climate have caused extensive disruption to the road network in the United Kingdom in recent years. Roads are vital for economic growth and social wellbeing, and a disruption to the network can have disastrous consequences. Since the impacts of climate change will be felt at regional and local levels, it is the responsibility of local highway authorities to establish effective policies to strengthen the resilience of their section of the road network. This re‐ port uses the West Midlands as a case study and aims to evaluate its regional highway network management strategies, to determine the extent to which they promote resilience to climate change. Recommendations and findings from other literature are used to establish a set of evaluation criteria to compare the maturity of highway network management strategies for the West Midlands region. The evaluation of the policy documents is used to rank the maturity of the strategies, and recom‐ mendations are made to local authorities to highlight where the strategies could be improved. The analysis highlights the fragmentation and disparity between highways strategies across the region and consequently the vulnerability of the region to climate change. Keywords: highways; transport policy; climate resilience; road networks; urban resilience; policy evaluation; multi‐criteria analysis 1. Introduction Roads are the most used transport network in the United Kingdom (UK). The exten‐ sive road infrastructure network provides national and regional connectivity and enables multi‐modal journeys through access to railway stations, airports, and ports [1]. Two‐ thirds of commutes were made by car in 2018 [2]. In 2020 Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) registered in Great Britain (GB) moved 136 billion tonne kilometres in the UK and the road freight sector contributed £13.6 billion to the UK economy in 2019 [3]. The role of road infrastructure is of strategic importance and disruption to the road network can have significant consequences for travelers, businesses and the wider economy. Previous extreme weather events have highlighted the vulnerability of the UK road network [4,5]. For example, widespread and localised flooding over the winter of 2013/14 led to many road closures and major traffic disruption [6]. Moreover, disruption on the road network can have knock‐on impacts for other sectors as infrastructure systems be‐ come increasingly interdependent [7,8]. As the frequency and severity of these extreme weather events increases due to climate change, it is essential that highway authorities devise strategies to ensure the resilience of the existing road infrastructure and adapt to the impacts of climate change [6]. The latest update from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates that the effects of climate change are already being experienced across all regions, world‐ wide, including hot extremes and intense precipitation [9]. This is evident across the UK as summer temperatures continue to set new records each year, with July 2022 recording Citation: Begum, S.; Fisher, R.S.; Ferranti, E.J.S.; Quinn, A.D. Evaluation of Climate Change Resilience of Urban Road Network Strategies. Infrastructures 2022, 7, 146. https://doi.org/10.3390/ infrastructures7110146 Academic Editor: José Campos e Matos Received: 30 July 2022 Accepted: 16 October 2022 Published: 25 October 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neu‐ tral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu‐ tional affiliations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Li‐ censee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and con‐ ditions of the Creative Commons At‐ tribution (CC BY) license (https://cre‐ ativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).