Highways asset management represents one of the most significant areas of technology expenditure for UK county and unitary authorities. Systems such as Confirm (now owned by Ideagen) and Symology Insight handle everything from defect inspection and works orders to statutory undertaker coordination and winter maintenance management. Licence and support costs for these systems regularly run into six figures annually — and switching costs are perceived as prohibitively high.

The Case for Looking at Alternatives

The highways software market has consolidated significantly over the past decade. Fewer suppliers means less competitive pricing pressure and less incentive for innovation. Several authorities have reported difficulties negotiating realistic support costs or extracting their own data in usable formats — a classic symptom of proprietary vendor lock-in.

The Highways Maintenance Funding settlement under the 2025 Autumn Budget placed renewed emphasis on value for money in local highways investment. Against this backdrop, the question of whether open source or open standards alternatives deserve serious evaluation is increasingly being asked in authority boardrooms.

What Open Source Options Exist?

The open source highways asset management landscape is less mature than the GIS or ERP markets, but is developing. PostgreSQL with PostGIS provides a robust spatial database foundation capable of managing the asset registers, inspection records, and works histories that proprietary systems hold. QGIS can serve as the front-end inspection and mapping tool for field and office staff.

For works management and contractor coordination, OpenProject — a fully open source project and works management platform — can be configured to handle planned and reactive maintenance workflows, with integration to spatial data via web APIs. Several European highway authorities have built bespoke open source HAMS using these components, and their code is publicly available.

The Realistic Migration Path

A full replacement of Confirm or Symology is a significant undertaking and should not be underestimated. The practical near-term opportunity for most authorities lies in ensuring data portability — requiring that current suppliers provide data exports in open formats — and in building internal capability with open source tools for analysis, reporting, and inspection support.

“The goal isn’t necessarily to replace the whole system on day one. It’s to stop being hostage to the supplier’s pricing by ensuring you can always take your data elsewhere.” — Highways Director, Midlands county authority

A phased approach — beginning with open source spatial analysis and reporting, then progressively migrating operational functions — reduces risk and builds organisational capability before the critical dependency on a proprietary system is removed.

As a Chartered Surveyor with a strong interest in the highways and asset management technology landscape, Stuart Planner is happy to discuss the options and point authorities towards the open source communities and technical professionals working in this area. Get in touch with Stuart.