Highways Agency Annual Report and Accounts 2011-2012

Operating the network: SECTION 3
Traffic Officer laying out cones to
provide a safe working area for the
emergency teams
deployed to the scene and work
in conjunction with emergency
services, providing a safe working
area, enabling temporary closures
from a single lane closure to a
full closure of the motorway, with
diversion routes clearly signed to
keep the public moving. Incident
scenes can be challenging and
dynamic in nature. Our main
focus is to clear the carriageway
effectively and minimise risk to the
travelling public, whilst ensuring
that road users are kept informed
of incidents through media and
on-road message signs.
A number of initiatives are
being developed to improve
incident management. A ‘CLEAR’
Initiative has been developed in
conjunction with the DfT, Home
Office and the Association of
Chief Police Officers (ACPO)
to improve motorway incident
management and reduce the cost
on the economy of incident related
congestion.
The following graph displays
the monthly profile of mean and
median incident duration times on
motorways throughout 2011-12.
This is the first full year for which
the data has been compiled and
we are therefore unable to identify
seasonal variations. It illustrates
that both the mean and median
incident duration times increased
in the second half of the year while
the number of incidents recorded
decreased.
Mean and median incident duration times throughout 2011-12
No. of Incidents
8,000
7,000
6,000
5,000
4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
0
Impact Incidents Mean Duration Median Duration
Apr-11 May-11 Jun-11 Jul-11 Aug-11 Sep-11 Oct-11 Nov-11 Dec-11 Jan-12 Feb-12 Mar-12
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Mean Average Duration (minutes)
Case Study:
Acetylene gas research
reduces incident related
delays
Opposite:
Fire and Rescue Services
attending an incident scene
The Agency has been a key
contributor in implementing
a change to Fire and Rescue
Service (F&RS) policy that will
significantly reduce disruption to
road users. Following combined
research as part of the National
Acetylene Stakeholder Group into
the properties of acetylene gas, a
recommendation has been made
that in the event of an incident on
the network involving acetylene
gas, the hazard zone duration be
reduced from potentially twentyfour
hours to just three, at which
point the cylinder can be removed
from the network. We should now
see much quicker resolution to
these incidents for our customers,
whilst not increasing the risk to
operational fire fighters.
Highways Agency Annual Report and Accounts 2011-12