Government Tackle Motorway Madness

Date published: 06/09/2005

As part of a Government project to improve Britain’s Road network, North West motorways have been introduced to new Highways Agency Traffic Officers. These officers have been patrolling in the West Midlands for over 12 months to ease congestion, and they are now coming up North due to their success.

Working alongside the region's police forces, the Traffic Officers will be patrolling the entire motorway network across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and Merseyside by summer 2006.

Steve Thomas, Assistant Chief Constable, Greater Manchester Police, representing police forces in the North West, said:

"The launch of this new service here in the North West today is the culmination of a great deal of joint working and planning involving staff from both the Highways Agency and representatives from every police force in the region.

"As the service rolls out to each police force area over the coming months, the public will see a greater uniform presence on our motorways and will, I hope, seek some comfort from that. More importantly the Traffic Officer Service will allow police officers across the region greater opportunity to focus on tackling criminality and depriving the criminals the use of our motorway network."

"The time freed up will allow officers greater opportunity to deal with poor driver behaviour and help in our fight to reduce road casualties. Whilst our motorways remain amongst the safest roads in Western Europe, we aim to make them even safer and one of the benefits from that will be less congestion and delay for the motoring public in our region."

Transport Minister, Derek Twigg said: "We are investing billions of pounds to improve this country's road network. Minimising the congestion caused by accidents and managing traffic flow efficiently is vital if we are to ensure the smooth
operation of our motorways for both travellers and businesses.

"The new Traffic Officers will improve services to motorists - making journeys more reliable and ensuring that time spent in jams is kept to a minimum. By simplifying traffic management responsibilities, the new Traffic Officers will enable the police to focus their efforts on their core role of tackling crime."

Around 50 Traffic Officers - both on-road and in the control room - will start in the North West today, increasing to 295 during the next nine months. They will operate from the new, purpose-built Regional Control Centre in Newton-Le-Willows, St Helens next to the M6, and five out-stations across the region.

The new Traffic Officer Service will eventually comprise around 1500 traffic officers - both on-road and control room - working from seven Regional Control Centres across England. A phased introduction will see Traffic Officers introduced onto motorways in the North East in late September, East of England in October, the South West in December and East Midlands in February 2006.