Road users help and advice 

If you want to report a problem or make a suggestion about a road you use, the best way is usually through the website of the body that manages that road. 

Most roads in Great Britain are managed by councils, including London boroughs.  Where there is a two-tier local government structure, the county council is responsible for roads. The more significant roads, including most motorways, are provided by central government – they are called trunk roads.  In England, they are managed by National Highways (previously called Highways England), in Wales by the Welsh Government and in Scotland by Transport Scotland.  Transport for London is responsible for major routes, red routes, in London. 

If the issue is to do with one of the motorways or major ‘A’ roads in England managed by National Highways, you can report a problem or to just get in touch with National Highways.  Take a look at a map of the roads National Highways manage. 

About

As the watchdog for users of motorways and major ‘A’ roads (England’s strategic road network) managed by National Highways, we aim to ensure that the user voice is heard by those funding, planning, building and maintaining them. This involves:

  • providing research on road user satisfaction via our strategic roads user survey (SRUS), the official measure of consumer satisfaction used by National Highways
  • influencing policy on key issues through research, including smart motorways, roadworks and information
  • ensuring that all road users voices are heard, including cyclists, pedestrians and equestrians
  • campaigning on issues affecting road users, such as #sortmysign.

Our engagement managers, based around the country, work with National Highways central teams and regions, ensuring that local issues are addressed and our research recommendations are implemented. Our work includes:

  • working with individual road projects, ensuring road user needs are considered before and during roadworks
  • attending regional customer working groups, representing the road user voice
  • pressing for policy change, to ensure better information is available for road users online and at the roadside
  • discussing our #sortmysign campaign reports, ensuring individual reports are actioned
  • challenging regions to improve their satisfaction scores, using SRUS results available in our datahub.

 

What we know about road users

Transport Focus carries out in-depth research into transport user experiences and needs for the future, resulting in lists of top priorities. This work includes the Strategic Roads User Survey (SRUS) and Motorway Service Users Survey (MSUS). The results of both these surveys are used by staff who liaise with key stakeholders at National Highways or across the motorway services sector to highlight where action and investment are required to deliver improvements for road users.

In addition we convene a Road User Panel that meets quarterly to bring together a broad range of over 20 organisations with a stake in the roads agenda.
Read more about SRUS
Motorway services Coronavirus precautions

Motorway services are a vital part of many road trips and have an important safety role in keeping people refreshed and revived. During the pandemic, we reviewed motorway service area websites to check that it was easy for people to find out what to expect regarding social distancing, sanitiser, and mask wearing.

To start with some of them were missing key information but they took on board our comments and made changes to help reassure road users.

 

Transport User Team

Nina Howe
Dan Taylor
Martin Clarke