Better information for your journey
The National Traffic Control Centre collects real-time information on road conditions.
See when traffic will be lightest
Our traffic forecaster can help get you there quicker
Roads That Work for Everyone
Roads That Work for Everyone
About us
The Highways Agency is an executive agency of the Department for Transport (DfT) and is responsible for operating, maintaining and improving the strategic road network in England on behalf of the Secretary of State for Transport. We have a major role in delivering the Government's ten year plan for transport.
What is our Network?
This map shows the motorways and trunk roads for which we are responsible.
The network comprises about 8,255 km (5,130 miles) of roads. Although our network is a small part of England's roads, it carries nearly a third of all traffic and two thirds of all freight.
What do we do?
We aim to deliver a high quality service to all our customers by:
- Reducing congestion and improving reliability through:
- a programme of improvements to the strategic road network;
- improved management of incidents and roadworks; and
- influencing travel behaviour through better information to inform journey choices.
- Improving road safety.
- Respecting the environment.
- Seeking feedback from customers.
Who are our customers?
Our customers are drivers and passengers in cars or on motorcycles; public transport passengers; commercial drivers; freight operators; businesses; people who live near our roads or cross or travel along them on foot, by bicycle or on horseback.
Reducing congestion and improving reliability
You told us how frustrated you feel when journeys take longer than expected because of congestion. You told us that you want information when planning journeys and also when you are en route.
- We aim to reduce congestion through a programme of improvements to provide increased capacity. Whilst this will achieve benefits in the longer term the construction work could lead to temporary increases in congestion.
- At the same time we are putting increased resources into actively managing traffic and giving improved information to help you make informed decisions before and during your journey.
- Traffic Officers working in partnership with the police are being introduced throughout the network starting on the motorways in the West Midlands. They will be dealing with road users on a face to face basis. Drivers will benefit from a dedicated, uniformed service 24 hours a day, specifically tasked with getting traffic moving again as soon and as safely as possible after incidents.
- Regional Control Centres, jointly staffed by the Highways Agency and the police, will support the Traffic Officers. The centres will monitor the network and co-ordinate responses to incidents. Seven centres will be introduced across the network in a phased programme by the end of 2005.
Safe roads
You told us that safety is a high priority.
- Our roads continue to be amongst the safest in the world. Our motorways have fewer fatalities than most of Europe despite carrying more traffic.
- We have been set challenging targets to reduce casualties.
- We have identified routes where accident rates are higher than expected in order to focus our safety investigations.
- We are working in partnership with others to raise driver awareness and promote better driving practice.
- We are committed to reducing further the risk to our staff and to those who work on our roads.
- We will continue to fund a programme for safety research.
- We maintain the network to keep it safe.
Respecting the environment
You told us that you expect us to take account of and protect the environment in all the work that we do.
- We recognise the need to maintain a balance between our responsibility to manage and develop the network with the needs of neighbouring communities and the wider environment.
- We use established procedures for appraisal and we make use of research to improve our environmental performance.
Seeking feedback from customers
You told us that you want to contribute to feedback and you want us to tell you what we are doing.
- We carry out a rolling programme of Road Users' Satisfaction Surveys. This provides information for measuring our performance against your expectations as set out in this leaflet. Reports are published on a regular basis.
- We have two national stakeholder committees providing an opportunity for exchanging ideas and discussion of issues helping to identify opportunities for improvement.
- We publish information about what we are doing in the form of publications and on the website.
How we will monitor our performance
We take customer feedback seriously and we carry out regular reviews of our customer services. We have agreed challenging but achievable performance targets with ministers to measure our success in meeting delivery requirements. We publish an Annual Report detailing what we have achieved and an annual Business Plan. Both can be found on our website.
Want to know more?
Call the Highways Agency Information Line between 8am - 8pm on a weekday and 9am - 5pm at weekends on 08457 50 40 30. Calls are charged at the local rate.
Write to:
The Customer Champion Team,
Temple Quay House
2 The Square, Temple Quay,
Bristol BS8 1BA
e-mail: customer@highways.gsi.gov.uk
