The United Kingdom Government's 'New Deal for Transport' published in 1998 set out the Highways Agency's (HA) change of focus to become a network operator. The Agency and the Association of Chief Police Officers, (ACPO) commissioned a review which, in its report of November 2002, indicated a strong case for the transfer of some general traffic and road management tasks away from the Police, thus allowing them to concentrate more on tackling crime, investigating collisions and enforcing the law. The review made anumber of specific recommendations: the development of protocols agreed with ACPO and the Highways Agency on all aspects of incident management andcontrol on the network; the development of a network of regional control centres and the introduction of a new HA on-road service; a communicationsstrategy to manage public expectations and improve Highways Agency branding in its new role; sufficient resources allocated to the network operatorrole; the introduction of effective performance management systems, and effective management of the change. The current report describes a timelinefor the handover of some functions of the Police Control Offices to the Traffic Office .The programme objectives of the Traffic Officer Service areto contribute to: a reduction in incident-related congestion in the areasin which the service operates; a reduction in the overall numbers of fatal, serious and slight injuries on the motorways from debris related incidents, where the service operates; and an overall increase in pro-active roads policing - particularly road safety and those offences that are recordable. The benefits which have been achieved to date include: quicker response times to incidents; reduced incident-related congestion; improved signs; and more arrests on the strategic road network. There has also been a recent decline in the number of fatal and serious collisions. Although it istoo early to attribute this to a statistically significant reduction, it is an encouraging sign of the potential effectiveness of the Traffic Officer Service in accident reduction. For the covering abstract see ITRD E139491.
Samenvatting