Managing major roads with electric vehicles

Using low and zero emission vehicles to manage the road network is key to our plan for decarbonisation. We're ahead of schedule in achieving it

We operate a modern fleet of 1156 vehicles. Each one helps us to manage and operate England's motorways and major A-roads, so you experience safer journeys.

Our on-road teams play a vital role in the safe operation of motorways and trunk roads. Our ‘light fleet’ is currently made up of:

112 pool vehicles
160 Road Inspector vehicles
82 company cars
355 Traffic Officer vehicles

Together these vehicles enable our people to manage incidents and inspect thousands of miles of motorways.

In addition, our specialist winter fleet consists of

435 gritters
12 multipurpose snow blowers

These vehicles keep routes open, preparing roads for severe weather and responding to wintry conditions.

Our vehicles need to be reliable, versatile, and capable of dealing with the rigors of the safety critical work we perform.

Last year, miles travelled by our light fleet accounted for 6% of our total corporate carbon footprint. This makes making its decarbonisation a key part of our journey to net zero.

In 2021 we committed to have:

75% of our cars and vans electric or hybrid by 2025
100% of non-traffic officer vehicles and 100% of traffic officer vehicles by 2030

The electricity used to power our electric vehicles will be from a zero carbon source.

This means that moving our fleet to electric will:

reduce the quantity of fossil fuels combusted
lower the carbon emissions from our fleet travelling on the network.

We’ve made great progress on these ambitions. As of September 2024, 96.76% of our light fleet is ultra-low or zero emission.

We expect this will be 100% (excluding traffic officer vehicles) by the end of the 2024/25 financial year, ahead of our planned schedule.

Next, we're launching a pilot of zero-emission electric Traffic Officer all-wheel drive vehicles across our road network.

Our team's feedback about on-road performance in hot and cold weather will help us make the right choices for future fleet purchases.

We're also installing 334 chargers at Traffic Officer outstations across England, with 121 installed in the last year alone. The electricity used to power our electric vehicles is all coming from zero carbon sources, reducing their emissions further.