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At Go Traffic Management, we have a range of both operational and back-office career opportunities. The Traffic Management Act 2004 (TMA) gives powers to reduce traffic congestion in towns and cities. The following gives a short summary of the different parts of the act and links to the parts and to supporting guidance.
Communicating and consulting on bus lane and moving traffic enforcement
Where they use payment centres, authorities should make sure that these are safe and accessible. Local authorities should make sure that any payment facility (particularly telephone and online payments) can confirm any amount outstanding if part payment only has been received. The penalty charge is usually payable by the ownerfootnote 13 of the vehicle unless the vehicle was hired at the time of the contravention. Local authorities that outsource any part of enforcement to private companies should ensure that the contractor fulfils all the requirements for the authority itself. However, local authorities must, themselves, handle and consider representations, reflecting their responsibility for the policy. This is important for the ongoing improvement of the service provided where both appeals staff and CEOs can share learning.
Challenges, representations and appeals
It is especially important that authorities should maintain good working relations with the police. The police continue to have responsibility for enforcing some types of moving traffic offences, and for taking action against vehicles where security or other traffic policing issues are involved, for example number plate cloning. Regular liaison will help to ensure that the civil and the criminal enforcement operate effectively. Where the adjudicator has questioned or criticised a local authority’s traffic signing, that authority should review the particular case, review the traffic signing and consider applying the effect of the adjudicator’s decision to other cases. For the same reason, local authorities have a duty not to fetter their discretion, so should ensure that PCNs, leaflets and any other advice they give do not mislead the public about what they may consider in the way of representations.
- An adjudicator has the discretion to consider an appeal made after 28 days in appropriate circumstances.
- Failure to comply with Chapter 8, and an accident occurring as a result, can result in prosecution under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
- The local authority must specify what type of authority it is (county council, a borough council, a district council, a unitary authority, or a metropolitan district council).
- This could be a construction site, accident, community event, tree removal, road surfacing, traffic congestion – or anything else that could cause danger or disruption to vehicles or pedestrians.
Experience has shown that compliance with the restrictions markedly improves soon after enforcement is commenced. The warning notice should set out the 6 month period and advise that any further moving traffic contravention at the same camera location would result in the issue of a PCN. It is therefore strongly recommended that accurate records of enforcement commencement dates are maintained. It is vitally important that authorities should try to work regularly with neighbouring authorities to ensure a consistent approach to enforcement and to share best practice. This is particularly important where bus lanes pass through the areas of different local authorities. It is also important that motorists and other road users understand the details of the scheme.
The area covered by a moving traffic Designation Order may only be within, or coextensive with, the geographic area already designated as a civil enforcement area for parking contraventions in accordance with Schedule 8, Part 2, Paragraph 10 to the TMA. The legislative opportunity has been taken to transfer the bus lane enforcement regime outside London from Section 144 of the Transport Act 2000 to the bus lane enforcement provisions in Schedule 8 Part 2 of the TMA. Local authorities’ bus lane regimes will move across to the TMA immediately upon the regulations coming into force, irrespective of whether the local authority intends to apply for moving traffic enforcement powers. The Secretary of State believes that local authorities’ annual reports should therefore combine reports about civil parking enforcement as well as bus lane and moving traffic contraventions.
The authority’s standing orders should be specific as to which officers have the authority to cancel PCNs. There should also be a clear audit trail of decisions taken with reasons for those decisions. Appraisals should also seek the views of people and businesses with a range of different needs as well as considering the views of the police.
As part of this process, local authorities should be mindful of their duty under Section 122 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. Scheme design should be reviewed to look afresh at the measures to be enforced to ensure that there is no location where a motorist would have to contravene the portable traffic system provisions to avoid a road safety or congestion problem. Measures to remove through traffic from congested urban streets can greatly improve road conditions for local buses as well as pedestrians and cyclists.
It is recommended that authorities use their discretion to extend payment periods where it seems reasonable to do so. If the image has not been viewed, or for any reason is not in compliance with the VCA requirements the image is rendered inadmissible as evidence of the contravention. It is recommended that a record is kept of who viewed the image and authorised the issue of the PCN and when that happened.