Background
On the 1st of April 2006, Amey commenced work on Transport Scotland’s third generation (3G) contract. Amey manages and maintains South West Scotland’s Trunk Road network, which includes some of the country’s busiest motorways and trunk roads, as well as strategic river crossings including Erskine and Kingston bridges.
In 2005, a Traffic Officer Service was developed by the Highways Agency and Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) to help ease congestion on England’s motorway network. With guidance from Transport Scotland, Amey adapted this vision to its 3G contract in Scotland, creating the Trunk Road Incident Support Service (TRISS) to assist Strathclyde Police in making road users’ journeys as safe and reliable as possible.
Innovation
Congestion on the UK’s roads costs us all around £3 billion every year. Almost a quarter of this stems from the immediate cost of collisions and their repercussions on journey time. With Strathclyde Police resources stretched by time consuming management of road traffic incidents, they strongly supported Amey in developing our existing presence on the network on behalf of Transport Scotland.
Efficiency
An independent review found that the TRISS service provides a Benefit to Cost Ratio of 3:1. Saving over a million hours of congestion on the South West Trunk Road network to date, TRISS has contributed to a saving of over £6 million. The proportion of incidents TRISS attends has increased by 400% compared to those attended by the previous service, made possible by a significantly reduced response time. With more accurate information supplied to Traffic Scotland as soon as incidents occur, there is strong evidence to suggest TRISS activity has led to a reduction in secondary incidents too.
Outcome
Amey has been able to drive efficiency by engaging an end-to-end approach to incident response and prevention on Scottish Trunk Roads. Integration of Amey’s Traffic Scotland contract into the TRISS service has enabled incident information to flow directly and rapidly to the public via Traffic Scotland’s roadside messaging service. Drivers are then informed of an incident and advised of the appropriate course of action at an early stage.
Having attended over 25,000 incidents since 2005, TRISS has consistently performed to a standard which has earned it the trust of Amey’s partners Transport Scotland, Strathclyde Police and the public. This has maximised potential for efficiency savings resulting from the service, across a wide range of stakeholders.
Conclusion
The success TRISS has experienced across South West Trunk Roads has enabled Transport Scotland to replicate this model across other parts of its network. Potentially disastrous situations are averted on a daily basis by the TRISS crew, who continue each year to surpass both contractual requirements and early aspirations for this service.