Public Servant Lifestyle

Congestion-busting Highways Agency (HA) Traffic Officers in England's South West are celebrating their first birthday. The service has gone from strength to strength with figures showing they have attended over 33,000 incidents in their first year.

The service has been praised by customers, with 95% of those questioned saying that the service they received from Traffic Officers was 'better' or 'much better' than expected. One disabled driver visiting the region from Ireland praised the 'professional and caring attitude' of the Traffic Officers. Another motorist, this time from London, commended the Highways Agency on a 'splendid operation'.

Motorways

The uniformed Traffic Officers started patrolling the region’s motorways when former Secretary of State for Transport, Alistair Darling opened the Regional Control Centre in Avonmouth in December 2005.

The Traffic Officers based in the control centre now answer an average of 147 calls a day, many from stranded motorists using the orange emergency roadside telephones on the M5, M4, M32, M48, M49, A303, A38 and A30. These calls reached a peak of around 5500 a month during the busy summer period.

Highways Agency Divisional Director for the South West, Graham Bowskill said: “I am pleased with the excellent feedback Traffic Officers in the South West have received from the driving public. We have steadily increased our presence on the region’s motorways and are confident that as we develop our expertise, we are helping to make the motorways safer and driver’s journeys more reliable”

Traffic Officers work alongside the police in the South West to manage incidents and keep traffic moving. They deal with accidents on the motorways, remove damaged and abandoned vehicles, clear dangerous debris from the road, undertake high visibility patrols and provide mobile and temporary road closures.

Traffic Officers

The service launched in the South West has 132 Traffic Officers patrolling 209 miles of motorways across Avon & Somerset, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Devon. The 29 staff in the control room dispatch them to an average of 101 incidents a day, helping to keep the region’s traffic moving.

The Highways Agency's Traffic Officers work alongside the police to help manage incidents and keep traffic moving.

Officers are routinely involved in:

More information available in On The Road, Professional Groups