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Highways Agency Traffic Officers
Page 31
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Active Traffic Management (ATM) will be controlled from the same regional network of traffic control centres as the traffic officer teams that have been rolled out across the nation since the 2004 West Midlands pilot. This comprises seven regional centres and one HQ in Birmingham. The officers at the control centres monitor the road network, give information to drivers and co-ordinate the actions of the traffic officers, who have recently assumed functions previously undertaken by police, such as keeping traffic moving following collisions.
The Highways Agency (HA) says the deployment of traffic officers has been a success: the pilot has been rolled out across the country. There is no reason to doubt the official line, but no meaningful statistics will be available to quantify their success until the HA annual report in July.
Malcolm Bingham, head of strategic network policy issues for the Freight Transport Association, says: The agency has not sung their praises enough. There is a perception in some circles, especially haulage, that this scheme has cost us a lot of money and questioning whether we see a return. But this is a very new scheme, only completed at the end of 2006. and all the evidence is it's a very positive thing.
"There are lots of individuals who have been saved from dangerous situations by traffic officers. There is evidence they get traffic moving faster than police because they don't have an investigative function and they free up police time."