CivilsRoute is a browser-based GIS tool built for UK highways engineers, infrastructure planners, and environmental consultants carrying out preliminary desk-based scheme appraisals. This guide walks through every tool and data layer on the platform — how to find a location, how to route and measure, how to export your work, and what each data layer actually shows and how it's used in professional highways engineering practice.
CivilsRoute is designed to process substantial UK-wide infrastructure datasets directly in your browser with minimal load time. To achieve this without shipping every dataset to every visitor, the platform uses a Region-First data loading sequence: the heaviest datasets are split into seven regional files matching National Highways' own operational regions, and only load once you tell the platform which region you're working in.
Click the dark blue Select Active Region bar near the top of the left sidebar and choose your operational region: South West, South East, East, East Midlands, West Midlands, North West, or North East. This single selection determines which regional datasets the platform is ready to load.
Once a region is active, region-scoped layers — including 100m Marker Posts, NH Structures, and council-specific Public Rights of Way — can be toggled on from the sidebar. If you try to activate one of these layers before selecting a region, CivilsRoute will prompt you with Select a region first ↑ rather than silently failing or attempting to load nationwide data.
With your region set and any relevant layers loaded, use the coordinate search tools in the sidebar to jump to a specific location, and the Route and Measure tools in the top navigation bar to calculate distances. Every point you interact with can be logged and exported — see the sections below for full detail on each.
UK highways engineers work across several different coordinate conventions depending on the source document — a scheme drawing might reference an OS Grid Reference, a client email might give a postcode, and a field survey might log GPS coordinates as decimal latitude/longitude. CivilsRoute accepts all of the common formats directly, converting between them automatically using the OSGB36 ↔ WGS84 transformation.
Enter a full or partial UK postcode (e.g. EX1 1EJ) into the Postcode field and press Enter or click the search icon. CivilsRoute looks the postcode up via the postcodes.io API and flies the map to that location, dropping a pin and populating the coordinate readout with the Grid Reference, Easting/Northing, and Latitude/Longitude for that point.
For a named place rather than a postcode — for example Exeter Cathedral — use the Location / Address field. This performs a UK-scoped place search and centres the map on the best match, useful when you know a landmark or road name but not its postcode.
Enter a standard Ordnance Survey alphanumeric grid reference (e.g. SX 92961 87714) into the Grid Reference field. This is the format most commonly used to describe a location on engineering drawings and scheme documentation referencing OS mapping.
For coordinates given as raw OSGB36 National Grid Easting and Northing values (X and Y, in metres), enter both into the Easting & Northing block and click Go to E/N. This is the format most GIS software and survey equipment exports by default in the UK.
For GPS-derived coordinates in decimal degrees (the format returned by most GPS units, smartphones, and Google Maps), enter Latitude and Longitude into the Lat & Long block and click Go to Lat/Long.
Enter a three-word What3Words address (e.g. word.word.word) to jump to the specific 3m×3m square it identifies — useful when coordinating a site meeting or referencing an access point that doesn't have a conventional address.
This panel establishes the core reference geography for any highways scheme — the legal extent of the network, its physical alignment, and the fixed infrastructure sited alongside it. These layers are typically the first checked in a desk-based constraints study, since National Highways' ownership boundary and asset base determine which agreements, consents, and liaison processes a scheme will need to work through.
What it is: National Highways' published Operational Highway Boundary — the digitised extent of land the organisation owns and maintains, equivalent in principle to the "red line" boundary conventionally used on planning application site plans.
How it's used: Establishes precisely where NH's legal ownership and maintenance responsibility begins and ends — the starting point for determining whether proposed works fall within the highway boundary (needing an NH licence or a Section 278/Section 38 agreement) or sit on third-party land requiring separate land referencing.
How to interact: Toggle on from the sidebar — renders as a dashed red outline with no fill, so it overlays other layers without obscuring them.
What it is: National Highways' own published centreline geometry for the Strategic Road Network (motorways and trunk A-roads) — the definitive digital alignment NH itself maintains and references internally.
How it's used: A base alignment reference for corridor studies, and for cross-referencing chainage or section descriptions used in NH scheme documentation.
How to interact: Toggle on to display the network as a blue line overlay alongside the Red Line Boundary.
What it is: The physical driver location marker posts positioned at nominal 100m intervals along the SRN, each carrying a unique reference used by National Highways, police, and emergency services to pinpoint an exact location without GPS or a full survey.
How it's used: Referencing exact chainage points in scheme documentation and cross-checking incident or inspection locations reported by marker post number.
How to interact: Region-scoped — select your region first, then toggle on. Zoom in to resolve individual posts; click a post for its reference number.
What it is: National Highways' published locations of Emergency Areas — the designated refuge laybys on all-lane-running smart motorways where a driver can pull in safely between standard hard shoulder sections.
How it's used: Relevant when planning works on or adjacent to a smart motorway section, since ERAs must remain accessible and unobstructed — both a safety-critical access consideration and a potential constraint on temporary traffic management layouts.
How to interact: Toggle on to show ERA locations as orange markers along applicable sections.
What it is: The overhead Variable Message Sign gantries displaying live speed limits, lane status, and driver warnings across the SRN, fed by National Highways' Datex II real-time data feed.
How it's used: A live operational layer rather than a static planning reference — useful for situational awareness of current network conditions when reviewing a live site, rather than for desk-based constraint identification.
How to interact: Toggle on to see gantry locations update from the live API; click a gantry marker for its currently displayed message.
What it is: National Highways' asset database of engineered structures on the network — bridges, culverts, retaining walls, gantry foundations, and similar structural assets NH maintains.
How it's used: Identifying existing structures a scheme might need to work around, tie into, or that could constrain construction methodology — for example, abutment clearances for a widening scheme, or existing culvert capacity relevant to a drainage design.
How to interact: Region-scoped — select a region first, then toggle on. Click a structure marker for its reference and type.
Understanding how a road is currently used — by annual volume, by near-real-time sensor flow, and by collision history — underpins most stages of a scheme's justification, from initial business case through to safety audit.
What it is: Department for Transport Annual Average Daily Flow count points — a yearly average traffic volume estimate for a specific point on the road, broken down by vehicle type, published for all classified UK roads (not just the SRN).
How it's used: A foundational input for traffic modelling and economic appraisal work, and for establishing baseline demand on a corridor.
How to interact: Mutually exclusive with Network Flow (WebTRIS) — only one flow dataset is active at a time to keep the map legible. Count points are colour-coded by road classification (Trunk Motorway, Trunk A-Road, Principal A-Road), with a legend appearing once active.
What it is: Near real-time flow data from National Highways' own roadside sensor network on the SRN, published via the WebTRIS API.
How it's used: Gives much finer temporal resolution than AADF data — useful for understanding how flow varies by time of day or day of week, relevant when justifying a temporary traffic management strategy or validating modelled assumptions against observed conditions.
How to interact: Three sensor types are distinguished — MIDAS (Motorway Incident Detection and Automatic Signalling), TMU (Traffic Monitoring Unit), and TAME (Traffic Appraisal, Modelling & Economics). Mutually exclusive with AADF Count Points.
What it is: The Department for Transport's national database of police-reported personal injury road collisions, each recorded with a severity classification of Fatal, Serious, or Slight.
How it's used: Central to road safety audit work, identifying collision cluster locations, and supporting the safety case for a proposed scheme.
How to interact: Filter by year using the checkboxes that appear once active. Use Start Crash Selection to draw a polygon around a specific junction or route section — CivilsRoute instantly generates a severity breakdown (Fatal / Serious / Slight) for every collision within that boundary.
Highways schemes increasingly need to demonstrate consideration of non-motorised users, in line with guidance such as LTN 1/20. This panel covers the two principal national datasets for existing cycling and walking infrastructure.
What it is: Sustrans' mapped network of signed cycling routes across the UK, covering both dedicated traffic-free paths and on-carriageway signed sections.
How it's used: Identifies whether a scheme crosses, runs alongside, or could otherwise affect an existing NCN route — relevant to active travel impact assessment, severance, and diversion planning during construction.
How to interact: Toggle on to display the network as a dashed green line.
What it is: Legally defined footpaths, bridleways, and byways as recorded on the relevant local authority's Definitive Map — the statutory legal record of rights of way in England and Wales.
How it's used: Works affecting a right of way may require a Public Path Order (temporary or permanent diversion or closure) — checking for PRoW crossings early avoids late-stage legal process delays.
How to interact: Loaded per council area — select your operational region first, then use the filter box under Public Rights of Way to find and load the relevant council's data.
Understanding proximity to trauma care and policing coverage is a standard part of construction phase planning under CDM 2015.
What it is: NHS-published locations of hospitals with Accident & Emergency or trauma centre capability.
How it's used: Informs emergency response time considerations for a Construction Phase Plan, and site-specific risk assessments where rapid access to trauma care is a relevant factor.
How to interact: Toggle on, click a marker for hospital name and detail.
What it is: Home Office dataset of territorial police force headquarters locations across England and Wales.
How it's used: Relevant for liaison planning on schemes requiring police coordination — abnormal load movements, planned road closures, or escorted convoys.
How to interact: Toggle on, click a marker for the force name.
Four background mapping options sit beneath the data layers, each suited to a different task.
CivilsRoute aggregates and displays public sector information from multiple authoritative sources, including National Highways, the Department for Transport, the NHS, and the Home Office. Where datasets are licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0, that licensing is preserved, and this page serves as the record of source for each layer described above.
Datasets are aggregated periodically from each publishing source rather than streamed live, with the exception of Live VMS Gantries and Network Flow (WebTRIS), which query National Highways' live APIs directly. All other layers should be treated as a snapshot current as of the last aggregation date, not a real-time feed.
CivilsRoute is a visualisation and desk-study tool. It is not a substitute for statutory searches, topographical survey, or site-specific ground investigation. All measurements, boundaries, and asset locations shown should be independently verified against the primary source and confirmed on-site before being relied upon for construction, land referencing, or legal purposes.