Highways Agency

• Traffic Incident Management Bulletin

February 2008

The TIM team recently organised a co-location trial within the West Midlands RCC involving Traffic Officers, Police and the Area 9 and 11 Service Providers. A report has been developed and will soon be issued to it's key contributors which recommends the co-location of the Highways Agency's Traffic Officer Service and Service Providers, along with the region's Police Forces within the Regional Control Centre (RCC) control room.

This article focuses on the findings from the trial and also provides a 'co-location overview' detailing what is happening in other RCCs.

Background

The co-location debate arose during 2006, where the Safety, Standards and Research (SSR) Directorate within the Highways Agency conducted an Incident Timeline Review. This was conducted to examine ways in which durations of traffic incidents could be reduced to make journey times more reliable.

The review demonstrated that co-locating both Police and Service Provider representatives within the RCC had the potential to bring benefits to incident management.

The Timeline Review suggested that benefits of co-location could be achieved through the following factors:

• Increased interaction between stakeholders
• Face-to-face communication
• Better understanding of each others roles and responsibilities
• Stronger rapport between organisations

The recent trial at the West Midlands RCC put this co-location theory to the test. The findings of this trial along with a national review have been collated in a report by the TIM team. This report provides an opportunity to look at the issue of co-location and determine if and how co-location provides value for money.

In other regions, different models of co-location have been developed as the Traffic Officer Service has been rolled out. This provides an opportunity to assess the benefits and pitfalls of each of the models. 

West Midlands Regional Control Centre co-location trial

The West Midlands RCC has been co-located with the Central Motorway Policing Group control room since it went live in 2005. The key difference for this trial was the introduction of the Area 9 and 11 Service Provider representatives who would:

• Manage Service Provider issues that arose
• Provide local expertise and knowledge
• Provide an incident management linkage

The trial's cold debrief highlighted that co-location at the West Midlands RCC would be a benefit to incident management. Many recognised it as the first move to generating a 'combined response'. This aspiration would ensure that the co-located responders clearly understand each others roles and responsibilities within incident management.

During the trial, three significant incidents occurred on the network. All debrief attendees commented that the Service Provider representatives played a key role in the management of each incident. For example, during the V-Festival the local knowledge shared by the Service Provider prevented areas of the West Midlands becoming gridlocked. 

Generally, co-location presents various benefits to the RCC. The trial demonstrated that these benefits are maximised if the Service Provider representative has the correct skill set. Typical skills/competences which the representative needs are:

• Willingness to approach and interact with others
• Extensive experience of incident management
• Detailed local knowledge of the network
• Up-to-date knowledge of incident management processes/techniques
• Authority to make potential decisions
• Good working knowledge of their own organisational structure i.e. departmental functions/contacts

National review of co-location

The co-location models in use nationally are extremely varied, with some Regional Control Centres being fully integrated whilst others do not have a Police or Service Provider representative. There are valid reasons why some Regional Control Centres are not fully co-located, some of the issues that have been encountered in different regions are detailed below.

Area boundaries

Within the East Midlands region there are three Service Providers - Areas 7, 8 and 11. Each of the areas has a relatively small section of their network patrolled by East Midlands Traffic Officers. This has resulted in them seeking co-location at other RCCs. For example, the majority of Area 11 falls within the West Midlands operational region. This is a short-term issue with changes to contracts likely to impact upon this soon.

Geographical restraints

The North West RCC covers a large geographical area, this means that permanently co-locating Cumbria Police resources at the North West RCC would risk isolating them from Cumbria's operations. This is due to the difficulties created by distance and the significant travelling time required within their working week.

Other Functions

The Service Provider's Network Control Centre (NCC) is central to the coordination of their operations. It provides many functions, one of these being emergency response deployment. In some areas it is believed that the NCC would be a better location to work from as opposed to being co-located within the RCC due to the other functions they can provide internally.

Summary

The TIM team are preparing to issue the full co-location report, therefore please keep checking the bulletin for further information on co-location developments.

If you have any views on the above then please get in contact via the email address below. Has this article been worthwhile reading? Why not take a moment to send us your comments, thoughts or questions. Please e-mail
TIMbulletin@highways.gsi.gov.uk.