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The chaos which crippled Belfast's roads leaving thousands of motorists stuck in gridlock has sparked questions over whether Northern Ireland should follow England's lead and create dedicated traffic officers, Victoria O'Hara investigates

Friday, February 23, 2007

After traffic chaos paralysed the city of Belfast for the second time in four months calls have been made to re-examine how government agencies manage our motorways.

Police and Roads Service revealed this week that despite closing the country-bound M2 and M5 foreshore motorways for four hours after the death of a man on Tuesday, no officers were deployed to direct traffic.

And the scenes of thousands of motorists in total gridlock mirrored the mayhem witnessed last October when it took around 14 hours to completely clear the M1 after a crash involving two lorries.

These two incidents have prompted questions from the public, politicians and members of the business community as to why the city's roads had to shut down, causing large parts of Belfast to grind to a complete standstill.

Now a Belfast consultant who helped restructure the English traffic management system has called for Northern Ireland to introduce traffic officers.

One year ago, following a review involving government bodies including the Highways Agency - which aims to provide motorists with safe roads - and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) launched traffic officers in England.

Since February 2006, 1,200 Highways Agency traffic officers have taken over three-quarters of the duties previously carried out on the roads by police.

They now have powers to:

Direct traffic;

Temporarily close roads;

Clear up incidents;

Remove vehicles;

Remove dangerous debris from roads.

The Government has invested £800m for the next 10 years to support the new traffic officers, seven regional control centres and 300 staff manning the centres.

And Anthony Aston, a spokesman for the Highways Agency Traffic Officer branch told the Belfast Telegraph it has been a great success.

Mr Aston said police officers still investigate the scene of an accident, but the traffic officers try to ease congestion problems.

"We have legal powers under the Traffic Management Act to stop and direct traffic and temporarily close roads or junctions."

Charlie Henderson, a management consultant for the PA Consulting Group based in Belfast, helped to implement the review in England and says it could work just as well in Northern Ireland.

"I helped the Highways Agency in England and Wales move away from a position of where they did primarily what the Road Service do now."

Mr Henderson said only 20 traffic officers would be needed to serve the Greater Belfast area.

A Roads Service spokesperson said: "When the Traffic Management Act was introduced in England and Wales in 2004, a review of roles and responsibilities' for the management of the road network was undertaken by Roads Service and the police in Northern Ireland.

"Clearly after Tuesday's incident a further review will be carried out. "