Highways Agency - Safe roads, Reliable journeys, Informed travellers

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• Vehicle Recovery

Background

Currently, vehicles that are abandoned, broken-down or damaged on our roads are removed either by the owner making their own appropriate private arrangements, or where the police need to intervene using their powers and supporting vehicle recovery contracts.

In 2002 the Highways Agency and Association of Chief Police Officers undertook a joint review of their roles and responsibilities on England's motorways and trunk roads. This led to the introduction of the Agency's 24/7 Traffic Officer service and provided the foundation for certain traffic & incident management functions to transfer from the police to the Agency. The Traffic Officer Service is now fully in place and patrols every motorway in England.

The transfer of dealing with vehicles that are abandoned, broken down or damaged was always envisaged to take place at a later date and the National Vehicle Recovery Project was set up to do this.

About the National Vehicle Recovery Project

The Agency has established a dedicated project team to deliver the new service which covers two core areas:

• Establishing appropriate statutory powers to allow us to remove vehicles and their loads from the network.
• Development and delivery of a contractual means of recovering vehicles and their loads from our national road network.

In developing the shape of our future vehicle recovery capability we have been talking and listening to the extensive experience of our police partners and those whose daily lives are involved with the vehicle recovery industry, together with our own staff and service providers. The focus of these efforts has been on meeting our customers' needs and requirements, both in terms of improved safety and journey time reliability.

New powers to allow Traffic Officers to remove abandoned and broken down vehicles from the strategic road network, the Removal and Disposal of Vehicles (Traffic Officers) (England) Regulations 2008, came into force in early October 2008.

Following an extensive procurement process, the National Vehicle Recovery Manager (NVRM) contract was awarded to FMG Support on 1 October 2008. The NVRM will provide an end-to-end managed vehicle recovery service. This will include all aspects of recovery and the removal of vehicles and their loads from the network, both on scene and subsequent vehicle case management.

Roll out of the new powers and contract, the service, starts in January 2009, and is expected to be complete in Summer 2009.