Highways Agency tracks road patrols

The Highways Agency is pin-pointing the position of traffic officers in the north-west with satellite tracking technology to help them to respond more quickly to incidents.

The motorway network is patrolled by up to 19 teams that are dispatched to incidents by the Regional Control Centre (RCC) based in Newton-le-Willows.

Satellite tracking technology will enable staff at the RCC to pinpoint the location of  officers’ patrol cars, in addition to radio contact.

RCC operations manager John Hope says the new system will enable staff to know where patrols are without having to ask.

‘This will be especially useful at night when it is more difficult for patrols on the move to read location marker posts,’ he said. ‘It will also help control room staff make more effective deployment decisions by seeing who is actually nearest a particular incident and whether they are free to attend.

‘Ultimately, this is about providing an even better service to the public with better response times.’

The north-west traffic officer service was includes 200 traffic officers patrolling all of the motorways in the region, which includes key cross-county routes such as the M62, M56 and M6.

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