Highways Agency - Safe roads, Reliable journeys, Informed travellers

Building of Operational Partnerships

The Traffic Operations Coordinating Committee

A newly-established Traffic Operations Coordinating Committee (TOCC) brings together representatives from local highway authorities across the country to provide the opportunity to raise issues arising during the implementation and operation of the TCC. The committee will include representation from the Agency and the TCC Company as well as Transport for London, the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and other network operators as required.

"The Highways Agency wants the Traffic Operations Coordinating Committee to provide a national forum to keep under review the roll-out of TCC operations and make recommendations on how they can best be integrated with local highway authority traffic operations."

Richard Thorndike,
Highways Agency Head of Network Customer Services

Building of Operational Partnerships

A key task for the TCC Company is to ensure agreements are in place with all organisations expected to influence, or be influenced by TCC operations. TCC implementation requires careful pre-planning to ensure:

• All traffic and travel organisations are aware of the plans for implementation of the project, their role in the project and how it will support their existing operations
• All affected or interested organisations become fully involved in the development process, with opportunities for them to provide feedback to the TCC Company
• The public are made aware of what will happen and when, and of the benefits to their travel choices that the project will bring

A wide range of activities is being carried out to prepare the way for implementation and operation of the TCC. Consultations have been held with all interested organisations, including Agency staff, the Police Service, local highway authorities, other network operators and the travelling public.

The National Guidance Framework

The principles governing operation of the TCC will be defined by two separate National Guidance Framework (NGF) agreements, one with the Police Service and the other with the Traffic Operations Coordinating Committee (representing local highway authorities). The Agency and the TCC Company will agree these principles with the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Traffic Operations Coordinating Committee respectively. The NGFs will provide guidelines and a starting point for the detailed local agreements needed to define operations between the TCC Company and each respective local police force and local highway authority.

Detailed Local Operating Agreements

The over-arching principles as defined in the NGFs will remain the same nationally, but variations in traffic operations will exist from one local area to another. To accommodate this, Detailed Local Operating Agreements (DLOAs) will be drafted with each local organisation.

Timing of the NGF and DLOAs