Case study

The Highways Agency                                                     

Less congested, safer roads – a world first in traffic management

MCA Awards Winner - 'Overall best public sector project' category
MCA Awards Winner - 'Change management' category

PA Consulting Group helped England’s Highways Agency (HA) take more responsibility for dealing with accidents, breakdowns and other incidents. It has helped build a new partnership with the police to reduce road congestion and improve road safety.

By 2003, congestion had become a serious problem for the HA. Demand for road space was rising, incidents were occurring more frequently and police resource was being moved away from roads to fighting crime.

PA was asked to review the respective roles and responsibilities of HA and the police in supporting the road network. PA helped broker a deal in which the HA would assume more of a role in traffic management and the police would work with them as partners to reduce crime and improve road safety. PA has supported this programme from concept through to delivery.

In under three years the HA has made profound changes. It has built seven regional control centres and recruited and trained around 1,200 traffic officers and 300 control room staff. Traffic officers are now generally the first people on the scene of a breakdown or accident. On a number of occasions they have intervened to save lives.

The programme represents the biggest change to traffic management in England for over ten years. Nothing of comparable scale had been achieved anywhere in the world.