if any HATO are on this site and i know they read these posts could one of you explain why when i was coming towards newbury on the M4 there was a sign up saying M4 junction 14 to 15 closed,so i started to think about other ways to get back to my depot,only when i got to J14 absolutely nothing,all clear all the way through,and also for the last few weeks about a mile from membury their signs were saying SLOW QUEUE AHEAD then from 60mph to 40mph,again when you go past membury, nothing, absolutely clear yet again with just one word END,end of what there was nothing there everything was running smoothly, answers please if you do not mind, mainly to satisfy my curiosity,i did send the H/A an e mail but no reply
Sure one of them will be along soon but be warned they don’t cope well with critique and in fact get a right strop on at times.
I am not a HATO, but. Motorway cop first thing.
The Queue Ahead, Slow, etc are USUALLY automatically switched on as part of MIDAS system. This works off induction loops in the road surface which monitors traffic flow over them, and when the speed falls below certain levels they switch on. They should switch off when the speed increases again. Daft things like if roads works cones are put out and they are over the loops this will cause the activation even though the flow speed can be fast.
The Motorway closure signs are a bit different. Close to the scene of say serious collision, they are set by the HA in the regional control centre for that motorway. Further afield say 50 miles away they are set by the NTCC (National Traffic Coordination Centre) in Birmingham, so that drivers are given as much advance notice to take a different route in good time.
That said, the incident could be resolved and closures reopened, but the NTCC haven’t been informed of it reopen.
Sometimes it’s Left hand doesn’t tell right hand what’s going on.
Ie I drive down the M6 ay Sandbach and overhead Matrix come on saying INCIDENT SLOW, I ask my control room and they so, “we haven’t got anything on the screen, we’ll check with HA” Minute or 2 later “HA are on way to a vehicle brokendown in Lane 3” Frustrates us just as much, but that’s the Politics involved. We got told once, HA own the motorways, we just police them!!
traffic rat,cheers for that,have to admit i was surprised to find the H/A had taken over the running of the motorway,a few weeks ago i saw a cyclist on the elevated section M4,all the exits were passed so the only place for him was the M4,i pulled in at the next phone to tell the police and the H/A answered and they were totally useless did not even know what part of the M4 i was talking about
HATO here! Traffic Rat is correct about “queues” anything that says “queues” is controlled automatically by MIDAS, they system checks each location approx every 4 minutes, if he average speed has increased it will switch off.
Motorway closures, The Regional Control Centres are responsible for setting signs & signals in the immediate vicinity of an incident, up to a max of 2 junctions prior. The Nation Traffic Information Centre will set messages further afield. (They also set the campaign messages) they work on setting up to 60 miles away for something that may take an hour to clear, multiply that if it’s expected to take longer. (Too many are set IMHO)
They rely on the information that the road has opened being passed to them from either, HATO/Police on scene - Regional Control Centre -to the NTIC.
HATO/Police will usually call up once they’ve cleared all their gear and are about to leave the location, then the RCC will cancel the signals they’ve set (can take up to 3 minutes) they then call the NTIC to clear theirs, this can take a few minutes also.
One of the big problems is with night-time roadworks, the roadworks crew will only ask for the signals to be cleared once they’ve removed all the cones, exited at the next junction, driven back to the previous junction and then removed their hard signage. So physically the cones are gone, all lanes are usable, but the overhead signs for the closures, and the pre-warning signs about the closure are all still showing until the hard signage is cleared and the foreman of the roadworks calls up to say they’ve finished.
One other possibly is a system failure, now and again but not often, One of the computer systems for setting these signs and /or messages can crash (just like any other PC system) if it’s the NTIC system, then we have to use our system to go around our region and “Force off” anything they can’t clear (can be loads, especially on nights for roadworks) If it’s our system that crashes, we have to get the systems guy in to reboot it (or what-ever they do!) depending on time of day etc, that can take anything from 30 minutes +
You can rarely also get the odd sign/signal that’s gone “off-line” this usually means that whatever is showing is stuck until either the engineer resets / repairs something out on the side of the road, or switches it off completely if no spares are available straight away.
The next bit I’ll have to be very careful how I word it!
If you call up on one of the motorway SOS boxes, it brings up the number of that phone on one of the systems, you will also be asked to confirm the number of the phone. When that SOS box number is put into the Command & Control system, it will give a general location, Ie, between J12 and J13, on the M6, A c/way.
The powers that be are now switching the SOS boxes from the RCC’s to a national centralized control room, where operators answer the SOS phones from all over the country, so don’t have the intimate local knowledge that we do.
Once they’ve taken all the information from the caller, it is sent to the correct region RCC (press of a button) we then work from that information and deal with it appropriately.
Dipper_Dave:
be warned they don’t cope well with critique and in fact get a right strop on at times.
Too right we don’t. Just for doing my job I get “Oh you’re those idiots who look like Police cars and every one slows down for”, I get called a [zb] as people drive past as I’m attempting to help them, yesterday I got a coffee shake from a passing trucker for no other reason than he was a ■■■■ yet I never get answers from you guys why you feel its ok to drop steel scrap from your trucks and cause untold damage to cars behind you or to leave trucker tizer in my office or put my life at risk by stopping in an era for a pee and then we get hit by a car that was clipped by a truck (M25 a few weeks ago) or why you feel it necessary to leave a closed lane until the last minute almost hitting my cones or feel that it is ok to do 56 through a mandatory 50 for roadworks or do 56 on a 40 A road but then hey ho. Guess we’re all just as bad as each other.
Traffic Rat:
overhead Matrix come on saying INCIDENT SLOW, I ask my control room and they so, “we haven’t got anything on the screen, we’ll check with HA” Minute or 2 later “HA are on way to a vehicle brokendown in Lane 3” Frustrates us just as much, but that’s the Politics involved. We got told once, HA own the motorways, we just police them!!
Not half as frustrating as putting on an RRB annoying truckers to collect debris that the Police collected 10 minuters before as they came across it but never told us or are doing an rrb in front of us for something but you don’t tell us or not attending a pedestrian getting aggressive when we ask but send 3 Police traffic cars to a broken down car in lane 3 or when the Police call us asking us to attend an illegally parked truck on a proposed slip despite us having no powers to deal and usually get told “You’re a womble and can’t do anything, bugger off”.
^^^^ that’s the getting a strop on that was referred to earlier.
To be honest, after that rant it’s no wonder the police don’t want to send a unit to where you are also deployed.
Just for fun tonight a 10 mile stretch of the M25 had fog warnings. 2 am, no clouds even in the sky but someone somewhere decided to play traffic controller.
m1cks:
^^^^ that’s the getting a strop on that was referred to earlier.To be honest, after that rant it’s no wonder the police don’t want to send a unit to where you are also deployed.
Just for fun tonight a 10 mile stretch of the M25 had fog warnings. 2 am, no clouds even in the sky but someone somewhere decided to play traffic controller.
No they haven’t. Fog warning signs are automatically set by sensors, so they could probably have had dew on them baffling the sensor. not set by an operator.
m1cks:
^^^^ that’s the getting a strop on that was referred to earlier.To be honest, after that rant it’s no wonder the police don’t want to send a unit to where you are also deployed.
Just for fun tonight a 10 mile stretch of the M25 had fog warnings. 2 am, no clouds even in the sky but someone somewhere decided to play traffic controller.
And it’s hardly surprising with responses like that is it? The police do want to send units, that’s the issue.
And again, “just for fun we set fog signs” not sure if you know but fog, like clouds, moves. There may not be any right then but there was it will be.
With stupid ■■■■■■■■ comments from you lot ALL the time with very little consideration for anything other than the snapshot view you have in a second if passing, is it any wonder since all we do is bang our heads against a brick wall trying to explain.
Big Jase:
m1cks:
^^^^ that’s the getting a strop on that was referred to earlier.To be honest, after that rant it’s no wonder the police don’t want to send a unit to where you are also deployed.
Just for fun tonight a 10 mile stretch of the M25 had fog warnings. 2 am, no clouds even in the sky but someone somewhere decided to play traffic controller.
And it’s hardly surprising with responses like that is it? The police do want to send units, that’s the issue.
And again, “just for fun we set fog signs” not sure if you know but fog, like clouds, moves. There may not be any right then but there was it will be.
With stupid ■■■■■■■■ comments from you lot ALL the time with very little consideration for anything other than the snapshot view you have in a second if passing, is it any wonder since all we do is bang our heads against a brick wall trying to explain.
hilarious. 
don’t come on a TRUCKERS WEBSITE AND WHINGE ABOUT TRUCKERS WHINGING! Apart from munching carrots, join the police 
Chill Big Jase, You know they’re all perfect. It’s not them that cause the major accidents, by tail gating, ignoring lane closures, switching lanes without knowing if there’s anything there first, loosing loads, running into the back of stationary traffic because they’re watching a video on the laptop, pouring a brew, reading their notes etc.etc. going round sliproads too fast and rolling it, no it’s not them, it’s always someone else’s fault!
This is the first time that I’ve ever commented on the standard of driving of these “Professional” drivers, I’ve lowered myself to their standard in doing so.
Just look at the standard of your colleagues driving guys, see what they do to save seconds, but putting everyone around them in danger.
Don’t think that you know everything about our job, because you know very little.
@truckman20…that sign was illuminated when I went down (I head West at night now and not North) at 20:15ish but come along the same stretch after 21:30 and you will find it closed…and the sign probably turned off! I set the TT up at 7pm and the info is already out that it’s closed 14-15! And for anybody wanting to come off at j11 eb after 22:00 (think it’s that time)…unlucky, it’s closed till 6 and there is a diversion on the diversionary route…good thinking Batman 
The real Biffo:
Chill Big Jase, You know they’re all perfect. It’s not them that cause the major accidents, by tail gating, ignoring lane closures, switching lanes without knowing if there’s anything there first, loosing loads, running into the back of stationary traffic because they’re watching a video on the laptop, pouring a brew, reading their notes etc.etc. going round sliproads too fast and rolling it, no it’s not them, it’s always someone else’s fault!
This is the first time that I’ve ever commented on the standard of driving of these “Professional” drivers, I’ve lowered myself to their standard in doing so.Just look at the standard of your colleagues driving guys, see what they do to save seconds, but putting everyone around them in danger.
Don’t think that you know everything about our job, because you know very little.
No, go on Biffo, tell us what you really think. 
I agree that there are some terrible standards amongst those with HGV licences but out of ■■■ thousand on here there are relatively few. Out of the HATO employees here there is only 2/3 and sadly both your attitudes towards drivers seem the same.
Work it out as a percentage of bad drivers vs. percentage of HATO’s with a chip on their shoulder than its no wonder why you are regarded by some as a joke.
I came up the A40 out of London today, it then becomes the M40.
Very first gantry sign had a marvellous message on it. Absolutely definitely the first one, it read…
“End”
NOVE:
I came up the A40 out of London today, it then becomes the M40.Very first gantry sign had a marvellous message on it. Absolutely definitely the first one, it read…
“End”
When really it should have read…
“Start”. 
HATO = FAILURE not good enough to be a copper 
and sub standard motorist who couldn’t pass class one! car drivers who think they can stop 44 tonnes with THEIR TWO TONNE VEHICLE = DEATH! 
The real Biffo:
m1cks:
^^^^ that’s the getting a strop on that was referred to earlier.To be honest, after that rant it’s no wonder the police don’t want to send a unit to where you are also deployed.
Just for fun tonight a 10 mile stretch of the M25 had fog warnings. 2 am, no clouds even in the sky but someone somewhere decided to play traffic controller.
No they haven’t. Fog warning signs are automatically set by sensors, so they could probably have had dew on them baffling the sensor. not set by an operator.
For the record, I have nothing to do with fake fog signs