Using drones
Drones offer a great opportunity to work in a smarter, safer and more efficient way. They make it easier to undertake certain activities while reducing risk to our people, road works and customers.
Now that drones are more accessible and widely used, we must make sure we use them safely.
Uncontrolled drones can damage our infrastructure assets and distract drivers. They can also disrupt other safety-critical air traffic and ground-based activities.
If you operate drones on behalf of National Highways, you should fly them in accordance with GG 954 – Drones Operations, our DMRB Drones Standard.
This video explains the general principles required to allow suppliers to operate drones on behalf of National Highways.
Contact us
If you are a National Highways supplier wanting to operate drones, please contact us at Drones@NationalHighways.co.uk.
We can advise you about what you need to do to comply with our policy.
We can also provide you with templates to help you develop your safety risk assessment, as well as example assessments for:
- daylight hours flights
- hours of darkness flights
- flights in confined spaces
Third party drone operators
Do you fly drones as part of your business’s operations, or perhaps as a hobby?
We don't own the airspace around our road network, but we ask you to notify us if you're planning to fly a drone in its vicinity. This is so we can make sure there aren’t any clashes with our own drone activity.
If you'll be flying near our network, you can notify us by creating a free DroneCloud account. We'll receive an alert for any flight within a 50m buffer of our roads.
If you wish to contact us regarding an operation, email: Drones@NationalHighways.co.uk.
Check which roads we manage.
