Road Safety Engineering

Torfaen Council’s Highways Group are responsible for the county’s adopted road network except for trunk roads which are managed by the Welsh Government. There are also a few roads that the Council has not adopted for various reasons and the private owners remain responsible for these. There are several groups within Highways covering different aspects such as new road construction, improvements and maintenance.

The HTE Group (Highways, Traffic & Engineering) manage almost all aspects of road safety engineering and measures on the existing local road network. The Authority monitors analyses and identifies sites where recorded personal injury collisions and casualties occur and then considers what, if any, road safety measures may be appropriate to treat these sites.

Where sites have been identified as potentially requiring road safety measures, the Authority will, where funding is available or as part of any bids for funding, design and implement road safety schemes.

Requests for road safety measures including for example traffic calming and lower speed limits are frequently received by the HTE Group. All requests are assessed and prioritised based on several factors such a vehicular speed, highway conditions/layout, local attractors but the main two factors are collision and casualty reduction. A rigorous evidence based assessment process is applied in all cases to quantify, compare, determine and, if applicable, prioritise requests and those sites where collisions have previously occurred for measures.

Trunk Road Information

SWTRA, the South Wales Trunk Road Agent, manage the trunk road network for Welsh Government. Details for the trunk road network and road maintenance/traffic information for trunk roads can be found at www.traffic.wales